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A non-cooperative game-theoretic approach to channel assignment in multi-channel multi-radio wireless networks

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Abstract

Channel assignment in multi-channel multi-radio wireless networks poses a significant challenge due to scarcity of number of channels available in the wireless spectrum. Further, additional care has to be taken to consider the interference characteristics of the nodes in the network especially when nodes are in different collision domains. This work views the problem of channel assignment in multi-channel multi-radio networks with multiple collision domains as a non-cooperative game where the objective of the players is to maximize their individual utility by minimizing its interference. Necessary and sufficient conditions are derived for the channel assignment to be a Nash Equilibrium (NE) and efficiency of the NE is analyzed by deriving the lower bound of the price of anarchy of this game. A new fairness measure in multiple collision domain context is proposed and necessary and sufficient conditions for NE outcomes to be fair are derived. The equilibrium conditions are then applied to solve the channel assignment problem by proposing three algorithms, based on perfect/imperfect information, which rely on explicit communication between the players for arriving at an NE. A no-regret learning algorithm known as Freund and Schapire Informed algorithm, which has an additional advantage of low overhead in terms of information exchange, is proposed and its convergence to the stabilizing outcomes is studied. New performance metrics are proposed and extensive simulations are done using Matlab to obtain a thorough understanding of the performance of these algorithms on various topologies with respect to these metrics. It was observed that the algorithms proposed were able to achieve good convergence to NE resulting in efficient channel assignment strategies.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions. This work was supported by the Department of Science and Technology, New Delhi, India. It was carried out by Rohith Dwarakanath Vallam when he was pursuing the Master of Science (by Research) degree at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE), Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IITM), Chennai, India. Arun A. Kanagasabapathy contributed initially to this work when he was pursuing Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech) degree at the Department of CSE, IITM.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, India

    Rohith Dwarakanath Vallam

  2. Bloomberg, L.P., London, UK

    Arun A. Kanagasabapathy

  3. Department of CSE, IITM, Chennai, India

    C. Siva Ram Murthy

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  1. Rohith Dwarakanath Vallam
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  2. Arun A. Kanagasabapathy
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  3. C. Siva Ram Murthy
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Correspondence to Rohith Dwarakanath Vallam.

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Vallam, R.D., Kanagasabapathy, A.A. & Murthy, C.S.R. A non-cooperative game-theoretic approach to channel assignment in multi-channel multi-radio wireless networks. Wireless Netw 17, 411–435 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11276-010-0288-5

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