Payoff-oriented quantization and application to power control

In many resource allocation problems, optimal allocation strategies must be determined when only a quantized version of the relevant parameters are available, for instance, power allocation in wireless communications. The contribution of this work is threefold. First, the quantization problem is revisited and a framework which encompasses the classical problem of quantization is proposed. Instead of minimizing the distortion, the goal is to minimize the gap between the maximum of a general payoff function (which would be reached by knowing all parameters of the function) and what is effectively reached when only the quantized version of the parameters is available. Then, to determine such a quantizer, the well-known Lloyd-Max algorithm is generalized. At last, we show how this framework can be applied to the problem of power control in wireless communications; the obtained numerical results clearly show the potential of such a framework.