Applications of Repeated Games in Wireless Networks: A Survey

A repeated game is an effective tool to model interactions and conflicts for players aiming to achieve their objectives in a long-term basis. Contrary to static noncooperative games that model interactions among players in only one period, in repeated games, interactions of players repeat for multiple periods. Thus, the players become aware of other players' past behaviors and their future benefits, so as to adapt their strategies accordingly. In wireless networks, conflicts among wireless nodes can lead to selfish behaviors, resulting in poor network performances and detrimental individual payoffs. In this paper, we survey applications of repeated games in different wireless networks. The main goal is to demonstrate the use of repeated games in encouraging wireless nodes into cooperations, thereby improving network performances and avoiding network disruption due to selfish behaviors. Furthermore, various problems in wireless networks and variations of repeated game models together with the corresponding solutions are discussed in this survey. Finally, we outline some open issues and future research directions.