Competitive Traffic Rate Control in MIMO-Based Wireless Relay Networks

This paper considers relay wireless network whose users are noncooperative to transmit the traffic to the gateway. To investigate network performance, the tandem queueing model is developed based on multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna system with space-time block code (STBC) transmission in a physical layer. Based on this queueing model, optimal traffic rate control is formulated as the noncooperative game. Three scenarios are considered in this game formulation, i.e., identical-priority, leader-follower, and cooperative rate control. In identical-priority scenario, the users have identical priority to transmit data to the relay nodes. Nash equilibrium is considered as the solution of this scenario. In leader-follower scenario, the users have different priority to transmit data. Stackelberg equilibrium is the solution. In cooperative scenario, the users transmit data according to the total benefit of the network, and optimal rate is the solution which maximize this benefit. With the queueing model and noncooperative game formulation, the behavior of networks can be investigated analytically.