Discrete strategy game-theoretic topology control in wireless sensor networks

One of the most significant problems in Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) deployment is the generation of topologies that maximize transmission reliability and guarantee network connectivity while also maximising the network’s lifetime. Transmission power settings have a large impact on the aforementioned factors. Increasing transmission power to provide coverage is the intuitive solution yet with it may come with lower packet reception and shorter network lifetime. However, decreasing the transmission power may result in the network being disconnected. To balance these trade-offs we propose a discrete strategy game-theoretic solution, which we call TopGame that aims to maximize the reliability between nodes while using the most appropriate level of transmission power that guarantees connectivity. In this paper, we provide the conditions for the convergence of our algorithm to a pure Nash equilibrium as well as experimental results. Here we show, using the Indriya WSN testbed, that TopGame is more energy-efficient and approaches a similar packet reception ratio with the current closest state of the art protocol ART.