Noncooperative waveform adaptation games in multiuser wireless communications: A survey of the use of game-theoretic tools

Waveform adaptation is a formidable tool that has been used for decades to enhance the system performance of wireless communication systems. Indeed, many studies have shown that the use of judiciously designed signals can result in substantial performance improvements with respect to the case in which transmit signal optimization is not taken into account. Broadly speaking, issues such as precoding, channel coding across time and space, rate adaptation, transmit diversity, and beamforming can all be seen as particular instances of waveform design and adaptation. Recently, with the advent of the cognitive radio paradigm, wherein secondary users may access portions of licensed, but temporarily unused frequency bands, another instance of waveform adaptation has emerged, in the form of dynamic, possibly competitive, spectrum access.