Selfish Users and Distributed MAC Protocols in Wireless Local Area Networks

Abstract

In this chapter we consider the effect of “selfishness” on distributed MAC protocols in wireless local area network (WLAN). The inherently contentionbased medium access in distributed systems is modelled as a non-cooperative game: “access game.” Both quality of service (QoS) and battery power (BP) are incorporated in modelling the game. It is shown that the Nash equilibrium (NE) for incomplete information games is usually inefficient compared to the NE of complete information games. We propose some simple mechanisms to approximate the incomplete information scenario as complete information. For complete information games, we investigate whether fairness can be achieved by selfish users. Different cases are considered and it is shown that the NE does not result in fairness. We next compute the constrained NE (CNE) for the access game. Finally, we analyze the stability of the distributed system.