Near-Optimal Deviation-Proof Medium Access Control Designs in Wireless Networks

TL;DR

This paper introduces deviation-proof MAC protocols for wireless networks that deter selfish manipulation by using review strategies and statistical tests, ensuring near-optimal performance with minimal efficiency loss.

Contribution

It presents a novel class of protocols employing review strategies and punishment mechanisms to prevent selfish deviations in decentralized wireless MACs.

Findings

Protocols effectively limit gains from selfish manipulation.

Analytical and numerical results confirm near-optimal performance.

Protocols work with both private and public signals.

Abstract

Distributed medium access control (MAC) protocols are essential for the proliferation of low cost, decentralized wireless local area networks (WLANs). Most MAC protocols are designed with the presumption that nodes comply with prescribed rules. However, selfish nodes have natural motives to manipulate protocols in order to improve their own performance. This often degrades the performance of other nodes as well as that of the overall system. In this work, we propose a class of protocols that limit the performance gain which nodes can obtain through selfish manipulation while incurring only a small efficiency loss. The proposed protocols are based on the idea of a review strategy, with which nodes collect signals about the actions of other nodes over a period of time, use a statistical test to infer whether or not other nodes are following the prescribed protocol, and trigger a punishment if a departure from the protocol is perceived. We consider the cases of private and public signals and provide analytical and numerical results to demonstrate the properties of the proposed protocols.