VAA Formation Game for Cooperative Wireless Sensor Networks

In this work we consider a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN), where nodes cooperate to send data to a remote sink. In particular, we assume that sensor nodes form Virtual Antenna Arrrays (VAAs) and use cooperative beamforming to transmit toward the sink. The VAA formation problem is formulated as a noncooperative game with complete information. In fact, on one hand cooperation greatly increases link capacity, but on the other, it introduces a certain overhead. The latter tradeoff is analyzed resorting to a game theoretical approach in which sensor nodes aim at forming VAAs to maximise their own successful transmission rate, while keeping under control the energy consumed for the signaling within VAAs. Based on this analysis, we then introduce a communication protocol for VAA formation. Numerical results show the advantages of cooperation among nodes as well as the impact of considering a realistic communication protocol, accounting for packets losses, with respect to the ideal case achieved through the game.