Network Formation Game for Multi-Hop Wearable Communications over Millimeter Wave Frequencies

Qianqian Zhang (1) , Walid Saad (1) , Mehdi Bennis (2) , Merouane Debbah (3, 4, 5)

1 Virginia Tech [Blacksburg]
2 CWC - Centre for Wireless Communications [University of Oulu]
3 LANEAS - Large Networks and Systems Group
4 Mathematical and Algorithmic Sciences Lab [Paris]
5 L2S - Laboratoire des signaux et systèmes

In this paper, the use of multi-hop, device-to-device communications over millimeter wave (mmW) frequencies is studied for effective wearable communications. In particular, a problem of uplink communications is studied for a wearable network, in which each wearable device aims to form a multi-hop path over mmW to access a cellular base station, in order to overcome the high channel loss caused by mmW attenuation and blockage. To analyze the optimal selection of the uplink path, a network formation game is formulated between all wearable devices. In this game, each wearable device autonomously chooses the uplink path that maximizes its quality-of-service that captures the tradeoff between rate, delay, and privacy. To solve this game, a novel algorithm that combines best response dynamics with mixed-strategy techniques is proposed to find the mixed Nash network, which corresponds to a stable uplink structure at which no wearable device can improve its utility by changing its network formation decision. Simulation results show that the proposed game approach improves the average utility per wearable device of over 14% and 78%, respectively, compared with the direct transmission and the nearest next-hop schemes.

Domaines: Sciences de l'ingénieur [physics]

Qianqian Zhang, Walid Saad, Mehdi Bennis, Merouane Debbah. Network Formation Game for Multi-Hop Wearable Communications over Millimeter Wave Frequencies. 2017 IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM 2017), Dec 2017, Singapore, Singapore. pp.1-6, ⟨10.1109/glocom.2017.8254621⟩. ⟨hal-02877335⟩