Introducing hierarchy in energy-efficient power control games

We consider a multiple access channel where the users choose their best power control strategy in order to selfishly maximize their energy-efficiency. To increase the utilities with respect to the classical non-cooperative game, we introduce hierarchy in two ways. On the one hand, assuming singleuser decoding at the receiver, we investigate a Stackelberg formulation of the game where one user is the leader. On the other hand, assuming neither leader nor followers among the users, we introduce hierarchy by using successive interference cancelation at the receiver. For both cases, we study the existence and uniqueness of an equilibrium and compare the individual performance obtained in the hierarchical game with that obtained in the non-cooperative game. An exhaustive comparative analysis of the two games is also conducted. In order to optimize the choice of the leader in the Stackelberg formulation (with single user decoding) and that of the decoding order (in the non-cooperative game with successive interference cancelation), we study two measures of global energy-efficiency for the network and discussions are provided for each case.