On Energy-efficiency in Wireless Networks: A Game-theoretic Approach to Cooperation Inspired by Evolutionary Biology

TL;DR

This paper introduces a game-theoretic, biologically inspired framework demonstrating that simple local rules can foster cooperation among wireless network nodes, leading to improved energy efficiency without complex algorithms.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel evolutionary-inspired approach to promote cooperation in wireless networks using simple local rules, reducing the need for complex strategic algorithms.

Findings

Cooperation can emerge and persist in wireless networks driven by selfish nodes.

Simple local rules and fitness evaluation can promote energy-efficient cooperative behavior.

The approach applies to both ad-hoc and infrastructure-based network architectures.

Abstract

We develop a game-theoretic framework to investigate the effect of cooperation on the energy efficiency in wireless networks. We address two examples of network architectures, resembling ad-hoc network and network with central infrastructure node. Most present approaches address the issue of energy efficiency in communication networks by using complex algorithms to enforce cooperation in the network, followed by extensive signal processing at the network nodes. Instead, we address cooperative communication scenarios which are governed by simple, evolutionary-like, local rules, and do not require strategic complexity of the network nodes. The approach is motivated by recent results in evolutionary biology which suggest that cooperation can emerge in Nature by evolution, i. e. can be favoured by natural selection, if certain mechanism is at work. As result, we are able to show by experiments that cooperative behavior can indeed emerge and persist in wireless networks, even if the behavior of the individual nodes is driven by selfish decision making. The results from this work indicate that uncomplicated local rules, followed by simple fitness evaluation, can promote cooperation and generate network behavior which yields global energy efficiency in certain wireless networks.