A Network Routing Algorithm Based on the Coalitional Game Theory

Network routing has a direct impact on the fairness and efficiency of the whole network .In order to improve the fairness of the network, each node should take into account the choices of other nodes. In this paper, a routing algorithm was proposed on the basis of the coalitional game theory. First, different coalitions will be formed dynamically in the routing process. Then the solutions to these coalitions will be given in the form of Shapley value that is considered to be the symbol of fairness in the game theory. Accordingly, the expected payoffs of the nodes are defined, and the characteristic functions of the coalitions form by network nodes are given. Finally, a method is presented for distributing the probabilities fairly to each routing path in a coalition. Experimental results show that our method is effective.