Quality-of-Service Satisfaction Games for Noncooperative Underwater Acoustic Communications

Decentralized resource sharing for multiple noncooperative underwater acoustic (UWA) communication links is investigated. Point-to-point links, considered as rational players, are involved in a noncooperative game in which they compete to find a transmission strategy satisfying individual quality-of-service (QoS) constraints. Examples of UWA communication scenarios with direct-sequence-spread-spectrum and orthogonal-frequency-division-multiplexing systems are formulated as satisfaction games. The transmitters adapt their parameters (power, frequency, and spreading gain) autonomously and in a decentralized way, without exchanging any information. This adaptation is made possible thanks to the feedback of local information on the channel statistics provided by their receiver. A blind satisfaction response algorithm is also proposed, which requires only a 1-bit feedback. Realistic assumptions are made regarding the environment. The UWA channel is modeled as random and doubly selective, its coherence time is much shorter than the propagation delays and no assumption is made regarding its distribution. The UWA communication links do not have any prior information about the interfering waveforms of competing transmitters. Extensive numerical simulations are provided and comparisons are made with the Nash equilibrium solution. Results show gains both in terms of probability of QoS satisfaction and power consumed, even when a minimal knowledge of the environment is considered.