A game theoretic framework for bandwidth reservation in mobile ad hoc networks

Up to date, most of approaches proposed for bandwidth reservation in MANETs assume cooperativeness among all nodes. However, in a public network where nodes are owned by different self-interested organizations, willingness to cooperate cannot be assumed. Selfishness of network nodes may cause not only failure of reservation but also degradation of overall networking performance. A mechanism of economic incentives is therefore needed to induce selfish nodes to participate in bandwidth reservation. In this paper, we propose a game theoretic framework based on Nash bargaining game from cooperative game theory. The framework solves the selfishness problem when reserving bandwidth in a forwarding node's neighborhood. We describe the network model in which this framework may be applied, as well as the computation of Nash equilibrium point, which can be considered as a pricing scheme that may obtain social optimality in reservation negotiations. Application of our framework can efficiently prevent network nodes from acting selfishly and therefore would improve the overall performance of the network.