Applications of Repeated Games in Wireless Networks: A Survey

A repeated game is an effective tool to model interactions and conflicts for players aiming to achieve their objectives in a long-term basis. Contrary to static noncooperative games that model an interaction among players in only one period, in repeated games, interactions of players repeat for multiple periods; and thus the players become aware of other players' past behaviors and their future benefits, and will adapt their behavior accordingly. In wireless networks, conflicts among wireless nodes can lead to selfish behaviors, resulting in poor network performances and detrimental individual payoffs. In this paper, we survey the applications of repeated games in different wireless networks. The main goal is to demonstrate the use of repeated games to encourage wireless nodes to cooperate, thereby improving network performances and avoiding network disruption due to selfish behaviors. Furthermore, various problems in wireless networks and variations of repeated game models together with the corresponding solutions are discussed in this survey. Finally, we outline some open issues and future research directions.Comment: 32 pages, 15 figures, 5 tables, 168 reference

A channel allocation algorithm for OSA-Enabled IEEE 802.11 WLANs

Channel allocation problem is a major challenge in wireless local area networks (WLANs), especially in dense deployments of access points (APs) where congestion of the unlicensed spectrum bands (i.e., ISM bands) could undermine achieved network performance. This paper analyses the possibility to alleviate congestion of the ISM band by allowing some APs to use additional channels located in licensed bands in an opportunistic manner whenever licensee services (i.e., primary users) are not affected. Availability of these additional channels in licensed bands is assumed not to be the same for all the APs. Based on this assumption, we formulate the problem for the channel assignment as a Binary Linear Programming (BLP) problem, which allows us to obtain an optimal solution despite an elevated execution time. We also develop a heuristic method based on building a Minimum Spanning Tree (MST) graph attending to interference conditions that is able to find nearoptimal solutions with a shorter execution time. Results are provided to assess the benefits of such a proposal under different WLAN deployment situations and primary channel availability conditions.Postprint (published version