EBGT: Epistemology-aided Bayesian Game Theory for Uplink Power Control in Stochastically Distributed IoT Tiers

Abstract

Uplink power control in dense, heterogeneous Internet-of-Things (IoT) tiers is fundamentally limited by incomplete channel-state information (CSI) and mutual interference, while low size, weight, and power (SWaP) devices cannot afford the feedback and computation of conventional distributed schemes. This paper proposes EBGT, an epistemology-aided Bayesian game-theoretic framework for decentralized uplink power minimization in stochastically distributed IoT networks. Interfering users are modeled as spatially random through a Poisson point process (PPP), and each device reasons about its rivals through a two-layer belief hierarchy of inter-epistemic beliefs about opponents and intra-epistemic self-assessment, so that the transmit-power equilibrium is reached without repeated inter-node feedback. We derive a closed-form coverage-probability payoff via stochastic geometry and quantify belief convergence toward equilibrium using the Jensen--Shannon divergence (JSD) of the resulting power distributions. Monte-Carlo simulations validate the analytical coverage expressions and show that EBGT sustains the target coverage probability while reducing transmit power relative to fixed power control (FPC) and stochastic non-cooperative power control (SNCPC) baselines, particularly under stringent SINR and high-density regimes.