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S. Lasaulce

Publications and source records attributed to S. Lasaulce.

14 recordsLinked to original sources

Learning control for transmission and navigation with a mobile robot under unknown communication rates

In tasks such as surveying or monitoring remote regions, an autonomous robot must move while transmitting data over a wireless network with unknown, position-dependent transmission rates. For such a robot, this paper considers the problem of transmitting a data buffer in minimum time, while possibly also navigating towards a goal position. Two approaches are proposed, each consisting of a machine-learning component that estimates the rate function from samples; and of an optimal-control component that moves the robot given the current rate function estimate. Simple obstacle avoidance is performed for the case without a goal position. In extensive simulations, these methods achieve competitive performance compared to known-rate and unknown-rate baselines. A real indoor experiment is provided in which a Parrot AR.Drone 2 successfully learns to transmit the buffer.

cs.RO

Communication-Aware Energy Efficient Trajectory Planning with Limited Channel Knowledge

Wireless communications is nowadays an important aspect of robotics. There are many applications in which a robot must move to a certain goal point while transmitting information through a wireless channel which depends on the particular trajectory chosen by the robot to reach the goal point. In this context, we develop a method to generate optimum trajectories which allow the robot to reach the goal point using little mechanical energy while transmitting as much data as possible. This is done by optimizing the trajectory (path and velocity profile) so that the robot consumes less energy while also offering good wireless channel conditions. We consider a realistic wireless channel model as well as a realistic dynamic model for the mobile robot (considered here to be a drone). Simulations results illustrate the merits of the proposed method.

cs.RO

Space-time budget allocation policy design for viral marketing

We address formally the problem of opinion dynamics when the agents of a social network (e.g., consumers) are not only influenced by their neighbors but also by an external influential entity referred to as a marketer. The influential entity tries to sway the overall opinion as close as possible to a desired opinion by using a specific influence budget. We assume that the exogenous influences of the entity happen during discrete-time advertising campaigns; consequently, the overall closed-loop opinion dynamics becomes a linear-impulsive (hybrid) one. The main technical issue addressed is finding how the marketer should allocate its budget over time (through marketing campaigns) and over space (among the agents) such that the agents' opinion be as close as possible to the desired opinion. Our main results show that the marketer has to prioritize certain agents over others based on their initial condition, their influence power in the social graph and the size of the cluster they belong to. The corresponding space-time allocation problem is formulated and solved for several special cases of practical interest. Valuable insights can be extracted from our analysis. For instance, for most cases, we prove that the marketer has an interest in investing most of its budget at the beginning of the process and that budget should be shared among agents according to the famous water-filling allocation rule. Numerical examples illustrate the analysis.

eess.SY

Power Allocation Games in Interference Relay Channels: Existence Analysis of Nash Equilibria

We consider a network composed of two interfering point-to-point links where the two transmitters can exploit one common relay node to improve their individual transmission rate. Communications are assumed to be multi-band and transmitters are assumed to selfishly allocate their resources to optimize their individual transmission rate. The main objective of this paper is to show that this conflicting situation (modeled by a non-cooperative game) has some stable outcomes, namely Nash equilibria. This result is proved for three different types of relaying protocols: decode-and-forward, estimate-and-forward, and amplify-and-forward. We provide additional results on the problems of uniqueness, efficiency of the equilibrium, and convergence of a best-response based dynamics to the equilibrium. These issues are analyzed in a special case of the amplify-and-forward protocol and illustrated by simulations in general.

cs.IT

Power Allocation Games in Wireless Networks of Multi-antenna Terminals

We consider wireless networks that can be modeled by multiple access channels in which all the terminals are equipped with multiple antennas. The propagation model used to account for the effects of transmit and receive antenna correlations is the unitary-invariant-unitary model, which is one of the most general models available in the literature. In this context, we introduce and analyze two resource allocation games. In both games, the mobile stations selfishly choose their power allocation policies in order to maximize their individual uplink transmission rates; in particular they can ignore some specified centralized policies. In the first game considered, the base station implements successive interference cancellation (SIC) and each mobile station chooses his best space-time power allocation scheme; here, a coordination mechanism is used to indicate to the users the order in which the receiver applies SIC. In the second framework, the base station is assumed to implement single-user decoding. For these two games a thorough analysis of the Nash equilibrium is provided: the existence and uniqueness issues are addressed; the corresponding power allocation policies are determined by exploiting random matrix theory; the sum-rate efficiency of the equilibrium is studied analytically in the low and high signal-to-noise ratio regimes and by simulations in more typical scenarios. Simulations show that, in particular, the sum-rate efficiency is high for the type of systems investigated and the performance loss due to the use of the proposed suboptimum coordination mechanism is very small.

cs.IT

Gaussian Broadcast Channels with an Orthogonal and Bidirectional Cooperation Link

This paper considers a system where one transmitter broadcasts a single common message to two receivers linked by a bidirectional cooperation channel, which is assumed to be orthogonal to the downlink channel. Assuming a simplified setup where, in particular, scalar relaying protocols are used and channel coding is not exploited, we want to provide elements of response to several questions of practical interest. Here are the main underlying issues: 1. The way of recombining the signals at the receivers; 2. The optimal number of cooperation rounds; 3. The way of cooperating (symmetrically or asymmetrically; which receiver should start cooperating in the latter case); 4. The influence of spectral resources. These issues are considered by studying the performance of the assumed system through analytical results when they are derivable and through simulation results. For the particular choices we made, the results sometimes do not coincide with those available for the discrete counterpart of the studied channel.

cs.IT

A trace inequality for positive definite matrices

In this note we prove that Tr (MN+ PQ)>= 0 when the following two conditions are met: (i) the matrices M, N, P, Q are structured as follows: M = A -B, N = inv(B)-inv(A), P = C-D, Q =inv (B+D)-inv(A+C), where inv(X) denotes the inverse matrix of X (ii) A, B are positive definite matrices and C, D are positive semidefinite matrices.

math.FA

Energy-Efficient Precoding for Multiple-Antenna Terminals

The problem of energy-efficient precoding is investigated when the terminals in the system are equipped with multiple antennas. Considering static and fast-fading multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channels, the energy-efficiency is defined as the transmission rate to power ratio and shown to be maximized at low transmit power. The most interesting case is the one of slow fading MIMO channels. For this type of channels, the optimal precoding scheme is generally not trivial. Furthermore, using all the available transmit power is not always optimal in the sense of energy-efficiency (which, in this case, corresponds to the communication-theoretic definition of the goodput-to-power (GPR) ratio). Finding the optimal precoding matrices is shown to be a new open problem and is solved in several special cases: 1. when there is only one receive antenna; 2. in the low or high signal-to-noise ratio regime; 3. when uniform power allocation and the regime of large numbers of antennas are assumed. A complete numerical analysis is provided to illustrate the derived results and stated conjectures. In particular, the impact of the number of antennas on the energy-efficiency is assessed and shown to be significant.

cs.IT

On the Fictitious Play and Channel Selection Games

Considering the interaction through mutual interference of the different radio devices, the channel selection (CS) problem in decentralized parallel multiple access channels can be modeled by strategic-form games. Here, we show that the CS problem is a potential game (PG) and thus the fictitious play (FP) converges to a Nash equilibrium (NE) either in pure or mixed strategies. Using a 2-player 2-channel game, it is shown that convergence in mixed strategies might lead to cycles of action profiles which lead to individual spectral efficiencies (SE) which are worse than the SE at the worst NE in mixed and pure strategies. Finally, exploiting the fact that the CS problem is a PG and an aggregation game, we present a method to implement FP with local information and minimum feedback.

cs.GT

From Spectrum Pooling to Space Pooling: Opportunistic Interference Alignment in MIMO Cognitive Networks

We describe a non-cooperative interference alignment (IA) technique which allows an opportunistic multiple input multiple output (MIMO) link (secondary) to harmlessly coexist with another MIMO link (primary) in the same frequency band. Assuming perfect channel knowledge at the primary receiver and transmitter, capacity is achieved by transmiting along the spatial directions (SD) associated with the singular values of its channel matrix using a water-filling power allocation (PA) scheme. Often, power limitations lead the primary transmitter to leave some of its SD unused. Here, it is shown that the opportunistic link can transmit its own data if it is possible to align the interference produced on the primary link with such unused SDs. We provide both a processing scheme to perform IA and a PA scheme which maximizes the transmission rate of the opportunistic link. The asymptotes of the achievable transmission rates of the opportunistic link are obtained in the regime of large numbers of antennas. Using this result, it is shown that depending on the signal-to-noise ratio and the number of transmit and receive antennas of the primary and opportunistic links, both systems can achieve transmission rates of the same order.

cs.IT

On the Base Station Selection and Base Station Sharing in Self-Configuring Networks

We model the interaction of several radio devices aiming to obtain wireless connectivity by using a set of base stations (BS) as a non-cooperative game. Each radio device aims to maximize its own spectral efficiency (SE) in two different scenarios: First, we let each player to use a unique BS (BS selection) and second, we let them to simultaneously use several BSs (BS Sharing). In both cases, we show that the resulting game is an exact potential game. We found that the BS selection game posses multiple Nash equilibria (NE) while the BS sharing game posses a unique one. We provide fully decentralized algorithms which always converge to a NE in both games. We analyze the price of anarchy and the price of stability for the case of BS selection. Finally, we observed that depending on the number of transmitters, the BS selection technique might provide a better global performance (network spectral efficiency) than BS sharing, which suggests the existence of a Braess type paradox.

cs.GT

Methodologies for Analyzing Equilibria in Wireless Games

Under certain assumptions in terms of information and models, equilibria correspond to possible stable outcomes in conflicting or cooperative scenarios where rational entities interact. For wireless engineers, it is of paramount importance to be able to predict and even ensure such states at which the network will effectively operate. In this article, we provide non-exhaustive methodologies for characterizing equilibria in wireless games in terms of existence, uniqueness, selection, and efficiency.

cs.GT

Introducing Hierarchy in Energy Games

In this work we introduce hierarchy in wireless networks that can be modeled by a decentralized multiple access channel and for which energy-efficiency is the main performance index. In these networks users are free to choose their power control strategy to selfishly maximize their energy-efficiency. Specifically, we introduce hierarchy in two different ways: 1. Assuming single-user decoding at the receiver, we investigate a Stackelberg formulation of the game where one user is the leader whereas the other users are assumed to be able to react to the leader's decisions; 2. Assuming neither leader nor followers among the users, we introduce hierarchy by assuming successive interference cancellation at the receiver. It is shown that introducing a certain degree of hierarchy in non-cooperative power control games not only improves the individual energy efficiency of all the users but can also be a way of insuring the existence of a non-saturated equilibrium and reaching a desired trade-off between the global network performance at the equilibrium and the requested amount of signaling. In this respect, the way of measuring the global performance of an energy-efficient network is shown to be a critical issue.

cs.GT