Game theoretic approach to medium access control in wireless networks

This paper proposes a game-theoretic random access model, compliant with the IEEE 802.11 standard, that can be integrated into the distributed coordination function (DCF). The objective is to design a game theoretic model that can potentially optimize throughput and fairness in each node independently and, therefore, minimise channel access delay. We propose a utility function, such that it can decouple the protocol's dynamic adaptation to channel load from collision detection. We demonstrate that our model can reach a Nash equilibrium that results in a relatively stable contention window, provided that a node adapts its behavior to the idle rate of the broadcast channel, coupled with observation of its own transmission activity. The simulation results show that this model is capable of achieving much higher throughput than the standard IEEE 802.11 DCF with absolutely better short-time fairness.