Game Theory Application for Performance Optimisation in Wireless Networks

Game theory has been recently introduced in wireless network design as a powerful modeling and analysing tool for competitive and completely distributed environments. It is a well-suited to describe mutual conflicting situations between multiple devices which attempt to communicate through a shared medium. In order to demonstrate suitability of a game-theoretic approach for optimisation of wireless networks, we first present the main idea, concepts and components of game theory. We then provide mapping of principles between the areas of game theory and wireless networks, and present some applications of game theory in wireless networks. We develop and implement a model for transmit power control optimisation in a wireless relay network consisting of wireless sensor network coordinator nodes using the category of potential games. In the game, we determine the Pareto efficient Nash equilibrium, which represents the optimal stable operating point of the network.