Basics of coalitional games with applications to communications and networking

Game theory is the study of decision making in an interactive environment. Coalitional games fulfill the promise of group efficient solutions to problems involving strategic actions. Formulation of optimal player behavior is a fundamental element in this theory. This paper comprises a self-instructive didactic means to study basics of coalitional games indicating how coalitional game theory tools can provide a framework to tackle different problems in communications and networking. We show that coalitional game approaches achieve an improved performance compare to non-cooperative game theoretical solutions.