Analysis of distributed route selection scheme in wireless ad hoc networks

The capacity region of ad hoc networks with optimal routing or scheduling has been investigated. Since distributed network control algorithms can be applied without centralized information, the resulting network can be scalable. On the other hand, selfish nodes can severely degrade network performance, for example, the network capacity. We attempt to analyze the obtained network capacity region based upon distributed route selection by using game theory. Simulation results reveal that in some situations, even with optimal routing, each rational selfish node cannot determine a unique route under the assumption that nodes know not only their own end-to-end throughput, but also those of all the other nodes, as a result of their own, and all the other nodes´, route selections.