A Game Theory Based Load-Balancing Routing with Cooperation Stimulation for Wireless Ad hoc Networks

In this paper, a game theory based load-balancing routing (GBLBR) protocol with cooperation stimulation is presented for delay sensitive traffic in wireless ad hoc networks. By calculating the game theory based delay utility function, GBLBR fully utilizes the link capacity across different paths, and obtains the optimal arrival rate for each path. This minimizes the average delay of each packet. Extensive simulation results have shown that the proposed routing protocol can reduce the average end-to-end delay and the percentage of packet loss. This is shown to be better than the conventional shortest path routing with the minimum hops approach. Moreover, the suggested game theory based cooperation stimulation strategy can enforce cooperation among nodes and improve network fairness.