Game theoretic approach to routing in 802.11 based wireless mesh networks

Abstract

This paper models the IEEE 802.11 based wireless mesh networks for optimal routing paths and pricing using the concept of Game Theory. In traditional approaches, each node has the tendency to pass maximum traffic through the selected route leaving rest of the network in a starvation state. To avoid this situation the concept of Mesh manager can be applied to break the selfish behavior of the nodes. The Mesh manager increases the cost proportionally to the traffic sent by the node. The consequences of this behavior leads to decrease in the payoff of the node, will ultimately leads the node in a situation to find another optimized route (i.e. route with minimum ETX(high throughput) and less cost). By using the game theory, an analytic model has been presented. This approach helps the node to search the high throughput path and break the selfish behavior of the node while routing the packets from source to destination in wireless mesh networks.