Stochastic Game Theoretical Model for Packet Forwarding in Reliable Relay Networks

摘要

In this article, a relay system consisting of a source, a relay, and a destination node operating on a common channel is considered. Both source and relay nodes generate packets independently with a constant rate. Two separate buffers are assigned to the relay node to keep received and internally generated packets. Retransmission mechanism is utilized to assure that all packets delivered to the destination successfully. A new Markovian stationary game theoretical model with two players is introduced to model the competition between source and relay nodes. Both source and relay nodes try to access a common channel in order to maximize the system overall throughput. Nash equilibrium strategy for non-cooperative scenario is adopted. Numerical results are provided to demonstrate the best strategy of players and their achievable utility in different conditions. Simulation results show that performance of the proposed system asymptotically approaches the cooperative system performance. In contrary to the cooperative system, in the proposed model nodes do not require to know other players' strategy in each time slot. Therefore, this model is an appropriate solution to apply in practical Ad-hoc networks.