Understanding Game Theory via Wireless Power Control [Lecture Notes]

In this lecture note, we introduce the basic concepts of game theory (GT), a branch of mathematics traditionally studied and applied in the areas of economics, political science, and biology, which has emerged in the last 15 years as an effective framework for communications, networking, and signal processing (SP). The real catalyst has been all of the blooming issues related to distributed networks in which the nodes can be modeled as players in a game competing for system resources. Some relevant notions of GT are introduced by elaborating on a simple application in the context of wireless communications, notably the power control in an interference channel (IC) with two transmitters and two receivers.