A Game Theory Based Vertical Handoff Scheme for Wireless Heterogeneous Networks

Next-generation wireless networks integrate multiple wireless access technologies to provide seamless wireless connectivity for mobile nodes (MNs). When MNs move in wireless heterogeneous networks, they may suffer from the great degradation of received signal strength (RSS) and further quality of services (QoS), if randomly selecting an access point (AP). We address vertical handoff with game theory to enable MNs to trigger the handoff and select an appropriate network from multiple wireless access technologies. On the other hand, the existing vertical handoff schemes lack of jointly considering the behaviors of MNs and APs for approaching the reality. To solve this problem, we propose a repeated game based scheme for vertical handoff. Each sub-game is formulated as a non-cooperative strategic game between a MN and an AP in which the Nash equilibrium is the solution of each strategic game. The proposed repeated game is to optimize the utility functions of the whole network by finding an equilibrium point. We perform the performance analysis, which shows that proposed scheme can achieve better bandwidth utilization and throughput of the network compared to the AP random selection scheme.