Noncooperative Game-Based Energy Welfare Topology Control for Wireless Sensor Networks

In this paper, we address the problem of minimizing energy consumption and balancing energy in a wireless sensor network, using a topology control algorithm. Such an algorithm is able to minimize and balance energy consumption by reasonably tuning the transmission power level while preserving network connectivity. This paper proposes an energy welfare topology control using game theory approach, which adopts the welfare function from social sciences to compute energy welfare as a goodness measure for energy populations. When each node tries to maximize the energy welfare of its local society, it collectively leads to energy balancing. We show that the resulting game is a potential game and that it possesses a unique Nash equilibrium, which is Pareto optimal. To evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm, extensive simulations were carried out, and the results were compared with the existing algorithm. The results demonstrated the superiority of the proposed algorithm over the existing algorithm.