A framework for incentive compatible topology control in non-cooperative wireless multi-hop networks

Abstract

We study the problem of building and maintaining a network topology with certain desirable features in a wireless multi-hop network where nodes behave as selfish agents. We first provide examples showing that existing topology control approaches are not resilient to strategic node behavior, indicating the need to consider possible selfish node behavior at the design stage. To this end, we propose a general framework that can be used as a guideline in the design of incentive compatible topology control protocols. As an example of how to apply our framework to specific topology control protocols, we present an incentive compatible distributed algorithm for building the minimum spanning tree (MST), which is a very well-known topology control approach. We test the economic validity of our protocol through simulation of wireless networks under various advanced signal loss models on the physical layer. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first incentive compatible realization of topology control presented in the literature.