AbstractsComputer Science

Game-Theoretic Relay Selection and Power Control in Fading Wireless Body Area Networks

by author] [No




Institution: University of Saskatchewan
Department:
Year: 2016
Keywords: Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN); Fading; Power Control; Relay Selection; Spatial Diversity; Energy Efficiency; Physical Layer Security; Quality of Service (QoS); Delay; Game Theory; Nash Equilibrium
Posted: 02/05/2017
Record ID: 2098125
Full text PDF: http://hdl.handle.net/10388/ETD-2015-12-2330


Abstract

The trend towards personalized ubiquitous computing has led to the advent of a new generation of wireless technologies, namely wireless body area networks (WBANs), which connect the wearable devices into the Internet-of-Things. This thesis considers the problems of relay selection and power control in fading WBANs with energy-efficiency and security considerations. The main body of the thesis is formed by two papers. Ideas from probability theory are used, in the first paper, to construct a performance measure signifying the energy efficiency of transmission, while in the second paper, information-theoretic principles are leveraged to characterize the transmission secrecy at the wireless physical layer (PHY). The hypothesis is that exploiting spatial diversity through multi-hop relaying is an effective strategy in a WBAN to combat fading and enhance communication throughput. In order to analytically explore the problems of optimal relay selection and power control, proper tools from game theory are employed. In particular, non-cooperative game-theoretic frameworks are developed to model and analyze the strategic interactions among sensor nodes in a WBAN when seeking to optimize their transmissions in the uplink. Quality-of-service requirements are also incorporated into the game frameworks, in terms of upper bounds on the end-to-end delay and jitter incurred by multi-hop transmission, by borrowing relevant tools from queuing theory. The proposed game frameworks are proved to admit Nash equilibria, and distributed algorithms are devised that converge to stable Nash solutions. The frameworks are then evaluated using numerical simulations in conditions approximating actual deployment of WBANs. Performance behavior trade-offs are investigated in an IEEE 802.15.6-based ultra wideband WBAN considering various scenarios. The frameworks show remarkable promise in improving the energy efficiency and PHY secrecy of transmission, at the expense of an admissible increase in the end-to-end latency. Advisors/Committee Members: Bui, Francis M (advisor), Salt, Joseph E. (committeeMember), Nguyen, Ha H. (committeeMember), Horsch, Michael C. (committeeMember).