PhD Offer M/F - Strong coordination and strategic communication in the finite-length regime

IRISA (Institute for Research in Computer Science and Random Systems) is today one of the largest French research laboratories (more than 850 people) in the field of computer science and new information technologies. Structured into seven scientific departments, the laboratory constitutes a research center of excellence with scientific priorities such as: bioinformatics, system security, new software architectures, virtual reality, analysis of masses of data and artificial intelligence.

Presentation of the CNRS as an employer: https://www.cnrs.fr/fr/le-cnrs
Presentation of IRISA as assignment laboratory: https://www.irisa.fr/umr-6074

This thesis will take place at IRISA UMR 6074 in the ERMINE team, Campus de Beaulieu, 263 Boulevard du Général Leclerc, 35000 Rennes, France, with regular scientific visits to IMT Nord-Europe, via Guglielmo Marconi, 59650 Villeneuve -d'Ascq (Lille), France, and possibly with scientific visits to Georgia Tech Atlanta and KTH Stockholm.

Since the next generation of wireless networks comprehends a unified network of connected objects, it is vital to ensure the cooperation and coordination of the constituent devices. While communication networks have traditionally been designed with the purpose of reliably conveying information, the devices can be viewed as autonomous decision makers which exploit communication as a way to enforce a prescribed behavior. In this scenario, the information transmission is affected by at least two kind of constraints. First, the encoder and the decoder of a given signal may have nonaligned incentives, in which case the encoder might be unwilling to transmit truthful information. Second, communication between agents is often imperfect, the encoder signal is degraded by ambient noise.
By building on recent advances in Information Theory on strong coordination, on finite-length regime, and in Game Theory on strategic communication, we will develop a general framework for the strong coordination of the actions of strategic agents in the finite-lenght regime. New characterization of information-theoretic bounds are expected, by using the techniques employed, where the fixed-length regime will be tackled.