Distributed Topology Control Based on Coalition Formation Game in Wireless Networks

Topology control can be realized by regarding network formation as a global cooperative game, where connected mobile nodes form a grand coalition. However, the grand coalition is not always beneficial since its high power cost for information exchange reduces the gains from coalition formation and group rationality can not be satisfied. In this paper, we formulate topology control as a cooperative paradigm with mobile nodes divided into coalition groups in order to improve network connectivity and reduce the power cost for information exchange. We propose a distributed coalition formation algorithm to form coalition groups among mobile nodes using a merge-and-split rule. Then the link maintenance in a coalition can be realized based on the transferred marginal utility in the bargaining game framework. Simulation results show that our distributed topology control incurs less power cost for information exchange and the network connectivity with the new link maintenance algorithm is better than that in the non-cooperative game framework.