Fair power control for wireless ad hoc networks using game theory with pricing scheme

Resource allocation in wireless ad hoc networks is usually modelled in a non-cooperative game theoretic framework with the objective of maximising individual utility. However, the selfishness of autonomous users under such framework may lead to throughput unfairness which only benefits certain users. To alleviate this unfairness problem, the authors propose a payment-based power control scheme using game theory where each user announces a set of price coefficients that reflects different compensations paid by other users for the interference they produce. Users who generate higher interference are required to pay more by transmitting at a lower power to give other users a fairer chance of sharing the throughput. Without any incentive to play fairly, users could misbehave by broadcasting high price coefficients to force other users to transmit at a lower power. The authors treat this problem casting it into a price game which resembles a Prisoner´s Dilemma game. Users who play this game iteratively will behave cooperatively and broadcast the price coefficients truthfully. Together with analytical proof, the proposed approach is shown to converge to Nash equilibrium where at this point it is able to provide a fairer throughput share among users at the expense of a slight loss in total throughput.