Browsing by Author "Wang, Wenbo"
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Item A Hierarchical Game With Strategy Evolution for Mobile Sponsored Content and Service Markets(IEEE Transactions on Communications, 9/24/2018) Wang, Wenbo; Xiong, Zehui; Niyato, Dusit; Wang, Ping; Han, ZhuIn sponsored content and service markets, the content and service providers are able to subsidize their target mobile users through directly paying the mobile network operator to lower the price of the data/service access charged by the network operator to the mobile users. The sponsoring mechanism leads to a surge in mobile data and service demand, which in return compensates for the sponsoring cost and benefits the content/service providers. In this paper, we study the interactions among the three parties in the market, namely, the mobile users, the content/service providers, and the network operator, as a two-level game with multiple Stackelberg (i.e., leader) players. Our study is featured by the consideration of global network effects owning to consumers' grouping. Since the mobile users may have bounded rationality, we model the service-selection process among them as an evolutionary-population follower sub-game. Meanwhile, we model the pricing-then-sponsoring process between the content/service providers and the network operator as a non-cooperative equilibrium searching problem. By investigating the structure of the proposed game, we reveal a few important properties regarding the equilibrium existence and propose a distributed, projection-based algorithm for iterative equilibrium searching. Simulation results validate the convergence of the proposed algorithm and demonstrate how sponsoring helps improve both the providers' profits and the users' experience.Item A Survey on Applications of Model-Free Strategy Learning in Cognitive Wireless Networks(IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, 3/9/2016) Wang, Wenbo; Kwasinski, Andres; Niyato, Dusit; Han, ZhuThe framework of cognitive wireless networks is expected to endow the wireless devices with the cognition-intelligence ability with which they can efficiently learn and respond to the dynamic wireless environment. In many practical scenarios, the complexity of network dynamics makes it difficult to determine the network evolution model in advance. Thus, the wireless decision-making entities may face a black-box network control problem and the model-based network management mechanisms will be no longer applicable. In contrast, model-free learning enables the decision-making entities to adapt their behaviors based on the reinforcement from their interaction with the environment and (implicitly) build their understanding of the system from scratch through trial-and-error. Such characteristics are highly in accordance with the requirement of cognition-based intelligence for devices in cognitive wireless networks. Therefore, model-free learning has been considered as one key implementation approach to adaptive, self-organized network control in cognitive wireless networks. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey on the applications of the state-of-the-art model-free learning mechanisms in cognitive wireless networks. According to the system models on which those applications are based, a systematic overview of the learning algorithms in the domains of single-agent system, multiagent systems, and multiplayer games is provided. The applications of model-free learning to various problems in cognitive wireless networks are discussed with the focus on how the learning mechanisms help to provide the solutions to these problems and improve the network performance over the model-based, non-adaptive methods. Finally, a broad spectrum of challenges and open issues is discussed to offer a guideline for the future research directions.Item Cloud/Fog Computing Resource Management and Pricing for Blockchain Networks(IEEE Internet of Things Journal, 9/24/2018) Xiong, Zehui; Feng, Shaohan; Wang, Wenbo; Niyato, Dusit; Wang, Ping; Han, ZhuPublic blockchain networks using proof of work-based consensus protocols are considered a promising platform for decentralized resource management with financial incentive mechanisms. In order to maintain a secured, universal state of the blockchain, proof of work-based consensus protocols financially incentivize the nodes in the network to compete for the privilege of block generation through cryptographic puzzle solving. For rational consensus nodes, i.e., miners with limited local computational resources, offloading the computation load for proof of work to the cloud/fog providers becomes a viable option. In this paper, we study the interaction between the cloud/fog providers and the miners in a proof of work-based blockchain network using a game theoretic approach. In particular, we propose a lightweight infrastructure of the proof of work-based blockchains, where the computation-intensive part of the consensus process is offloaded to the cloud/fog. We formulate the computation resource management in the blockchain consensus process as a two-stage Stackelberg game, where the profit of the cloud/fog provider and the utilities of the individual miners are jointly optimized. In the first stage of the game, the cloud/fog provider sets the price of offered computing resource. In the second stage, the miners decide on the amount of service to purchase accordingly. We apply backward induction to analyze the sub-game perfect equilibria in each stage for both uniform and discriminatory pricing schemes. For uniform pricing where the same price applies to all miners, the uniqueness of the Stackelberg equilibrium is validated by identifying the best response strategies of the miners. For discriminatory pricing where the different prices are applied, the uniqueness of the Stackelberg equilibrium is proved by capitalizing on the variational inequality theory. Further, the real experimental results are employed to justify our proposed model.Item Learning for Robust Routing Based on Stochastic Game in Cognitive Radio Networks(IEEE Transactions on Communications, 1/30/2018) Wang, Wenbo; Kwasinski, Andres; Niyato, Dusit; Han, ZhuThis paper studies the problem of spectrum-aware routing in a multi-hop, multi-channel cognitive radio network when malicious nodes in the secondary network attempt to block the path with mixed attacks. Based on the location and time-variant path delay information, we model the path discovery process as a non-cooperative stochastic game. By exploiting the structure of the underlying Markov Decision Process, we decompose the stochastic routing game into a series of stage games. For each stage game, we propose a distributed strategy learning mechanism based on stochastic fictitious play to learn the equilibrium strategies of joint relay-channel selection in the condition of both limited information exchange and potential routing-toward-primary attacks. We also introduce a trustworthiness evaluation mechanism based on a multi-arm bandit process for normal users to avoid relaying to the sink-hole attackers. Simulation results show that without the need of information flooding, the proposed algorithm is efficient in bypassing the malicious nodes with mixed attacks.