A New Distributed Coalition Formation Algorithm for Cooperation in Ad Hoc Networks

摘要

Stimulating cooperation among selfish nodes is critical to enhance network performance. In this paper, we formulate this problem as a coalition game formation among the rational nodes due to its features of ad hoc networks, instead of overlapping coalition formation game. In the game, each node can freely decide to choose a cooperative coalition for its incentive cooperation. Then, we devise a new and simple distributed coalition formation algorithm using the joining and leaving rules for each node's choice, so as to assure that the newly formed coalitional structure can converge to a stable structure. At last, we also verify the performance of the proposed algorithm through simulations, and compare it with the non-cooperative scheme. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm has a better performance than the non-cooperative scheme.