Game theoretic energy balancing routing in three dimensional wireless sensor networks

Extending lifetime of a wireless sensor network (WSN) has been a subject of intensive research. This paper proposes to extend the lifetime by balancing traffic load in the network using game theoretic approach. The objective is to develop a protocol to allow sensor nodes to deplete their energy approximately at the same time. The proposed routing protocol, called three dimensional (3D) game theoretic energy balance (3D-GTEB), is decentralized, scalable and stable. 3D-GTEB uses two levels of decision making to achieve its objective. In the first level, evolutionary game theory (EGT) is used to balance energy consumption in various forwarding 3D wedges around a sender, while in the second level, classical game theory (CGT) is used to select a forwarding node in the selected wedge. An extensive simulation study demonstrates that the algorithm prolongs the network lifetime and reduces energy per packet as compared with its 2D counterpart.