Reginald A. Banez - Mean Field Game and its Applications in Wireless Networks

The purpose of Springer's Wireless Networks book series is to establish the state of the art and set the course for future research and development in wireless communication networks. The scope of this series includes not only all aspects of wireless networks (including cellular networks, WiFi, sensor networks, and vehicular networks), but related areas such as cloud computing and big data. The series serves as a central source of references for wireless networks research and development. It aims to publish thorough and cohesive overviews on specific topics in wireless networks, as well as works that are larger in scope than survey articles and that contain more detailed background information. The series also provides coverage of advanced and timely topics worthy of monographs, contributed volumes, textbooks and handbooks.

** Indexing: Wireless Networks is indexed in EBSCO databases and DPLB **

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/14180

This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG

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The current generation of wireless networks is approaching its limits caused by increasing data traffic, more frequent network usage, and rising number of connected devices. In order to overcome these limitations, enabling technologies such as ultra-dense networks, multi-access edge networks, and massive antenna arrays are proposed as part of the future generation of wireless networks. However, in order to analyze, model, and simulate these technologies, an appropriate mathematical framework that can handle a large number of interacting entities is necessary. Hence, this book focuses on mean field games (MFGs) and their applications in future wireless networks.

MFGs deal with the study and analysis of differential games with infinitely many players. The theory of MFG enables the study of the Nash equilibrium of games with very large number of indistinguishable players. It allows a player to make a decision or strategy based on the state distribution of all the players instead on the individual states of other players. Meanwhile, a mean-field-type game (MFTG), a subclass and relaxed version of MFG, has been applied to applications where the MFG assumptions do not necessarily hold. In MFTG, the number of decision makers may be infinite or finite, the decision makers may not be indistinguishable, and a decision maker may have a significant effect on the state distribution.

This book starts with an overview of the current and future state-of-the-art in 5G and 6G wireless networks. Next, a tutorial on MFG, MFTG, and prerequisite fields of study, such as optimal control theory and differential games, is presented. Afterwards, several applications of MFG and MFTG in ultra-dense networks, social networks, and multi-access edge computing networks are introduced.

Furthermore, the goal of this book is to educate electrical and computer engineers as well as applied mathematicians about the significance of MFG and MFTG in analyzing and designing future wireless networks.