CHAPTER 1
Introduction
In many applications especially involving distributed systems, resource allocation depends
on private information held by the end systems or users. There are several recent works
which focussed on situations where these end users are strategic (see [1], [2] and [3]).
Strategic users may misrepresent their private information so as to maximize their own
utility even if at the expense of aggregate system utility [4]. In many practical applications
like spectrum allocation, public good allocation, network resource allocation etc., the
resource is shared by many users, i.e., it is divisible. An efficient allocation of a perfectly
divisible resource to a number of strategic users is considered here.
1.1
Strategic behavior of users in uplink of a cellular
system
We consider resource allocation in the uplink of a cellular system shown in Figure 1.1
which is a multiple access channel (MAC). In a cell, the base station has one channel
resource it can allocate to the users. The channel resource can be frequency or time
shared between the users, and thus, it can be considered as perfectly divisible. The
resource allocation depends mainly on two parameters [5]. One parameter is the channel
quality between the users and the base station. This information will be obtained by base
station using the pilot symbols sent from the users. Another parameter is the number of
packets waiting to be served in the queue of the users. This residual queue size is known