Delay-guaranteed scheduling strategy in cyber-physical systems: a game-theoretic approach

The physical space and the cyber space are deeply coupled in Cyber-physical systems (CPS). The computing components and the physical components are connected via the communication network. In order to provide real-time and predictable communication, the paper combines CSMA-type scheduling algorithm with the game theory. A non-cooperative game is proposed to form the scheduling set in the contention-based multiple-access scenario. Each packet to be transmitted has an maximum-allowable delay. In the game, the player has only its delay knowledge. Each player makes decision without the delay knowledge of the other competing players. We design a utility function to encourage the players to cooperate and give the transmission chance to the urgent packet. We show that the game-theoretic CSMA(GT-CSMA) scheduling approach can improve the performance of delay-guaranteed compared with the existing scheduling algorithms.