Optimal Resource Allocation between Two Nonfully Cooperative Wireless Networks under Malicious Attacks: A Gestalt Game Perspective

Abstract: In this paper, the problem of seeking optimal distributed resource allocation (DRA) policies on cellular networks in the presence of an unknown malicious adding-edge attacker is investigated. This problem is described as the games of games (GoG) model. Specifically, two subnetwork policymakers constitute a Nash game, while the confrontation between each subnetwork policymaker and the attacker is captured by a Stackelberg game. First, we show that the communication resource allocation of cellular networks based on the Foschini-Miljanic (FM) algorithm can be transformed into a \emph{geometric program} and be efficiently solved via convex optimization. Second, the upper limit of attack magnitude that can be tolerated by the network is calculated by the corresponding theory, and it is proved that the above geometric programming (GP) framework is solvable within the attack bound, that is, there exists a Gestalt Nash equilibrium (GNE) in our GoG. Third, a heuristic algorithm that iteratively uses GP is proposed to identify the optimal policy profiles of both subnetworks, for which asymptotic convergence is also confirmed. Fourth, a greedy heuristic adding-edge strategy is developed for the attacker to determine the set of the most vulnerable edges. Finally, simulation examples illustrate that the proposed theoretical results are robust and can achieve the GNE. It is verified that the transmission gains and interference gains of all channels are well tuned within a limited budget, despite the existence of malicious attacks.