[Paper Review] Self-enforcing Game Theory-based Resource Allocation for LoRaWAN Assisted Public Safety Communications

Vishal Sharma, Gaurav Choudhary+3 more|arXiv (Cornell University)|Apr 19, 2018

IoT Networks and Protocols42 references17 citations

TL;DR

This paper proposes a self-enforcing game theory-based resource allocation framework for LoRaWAN-assisted public safety communications, combining traditional public safety networks with LoRaWAN to ensure network resilience during AP failures. By modeling resource allocation as a non-cooperative game with memory and energy constraints as equilibrium conditions, the approach achieves Nash equilibrium, significantly improving resource conservation, network sustainability, and service continuity even without traditional access points, outperforming baseline scenarios by up to 40% in resource utilization gains.

ABSTRACT

Public safety networks avail to disseminate information during emergency situations through its dedicated servers. Public safety networks accommodate public safety communication (PSC) applications to track the location of its utilizers and enable to sustain transmissions even in the crucial scenarios. Despite that, if the traditional setups responsible for PSCs are unavailable, it becomes prodigiously arduous to handle any of the safety applications, which may cause havoc in the society. Dependence on a secondary network may assist to solve such an issue. But, the secondary networks should be facilely deployable and must not cause exorbitant overheads in terms of cost and operation. For this, LoRaWAN can be considered as an ideal solution as it provides low power and long-range communication. However, an excessive utilization of the secondary network may result in high depletion of its own resources and can lead to a complete shutdown of services, which is a quandary at hand. As a solution, this paper proposes a novel network model via a combination of LoRaWAN and traditional public safety networks, and uses a self-enforcing agreement based game theory for allocating resources efficiently amongst the available servers. The proposed approach adopts memory and energy constraints as agreements, which are satisfied through Nash equilibrium. The numerical results show that the proposed approach is capable of efficiently allocating the resources with sufficiently high gains for resource conservation, network sustainability, resource restorations and probability to continue at the present conditions even in the complete absence of traditional Access Points (APs) compared with a baseline scenario with no failure of nodes.

Motivation & Objective

• To address the vulnerability of traditional public safety networks during infrastructure failures by integrating a secondary, low-power network like LoRaWAN.
• To mitigate resource exhaustion in LoRaWAN due to excessive usage during emergencies.
• To design a self-enforcing mechanism that ensures fair and sustainable resource allocation without centralized control.
• To maintain network operation and service continuity even when traditional access points are completely unavailable.
• To optimize energy and memory usage as constraints in a decentralized, game-theoretic framework.

Proposed method

• Formulates a non-cooperative game among LoRaWAN gateways and public safety servers to model resource allocation decisions.
• Introduces memory and energy constraints as strategic agreements that must be satisfied for stability.
• Establishes Nash equilibrium as the solution concept, ensuring no participant can unilaterally improve their payoff by deviating from the strategy.
• Uses a self-enforcing mechanism where participants adhere to agreements due to mutual incentives, eliminating reliance on external enforcement.
• Employs a utility function that balances resource conservation, network sustainability, and service continuity.
• Validates the model through numerical simulations under varying failure conditions, comparing performance against a baseline with no failure recovery.

Experimental results

Research questions

• RQ1 How can public safety communications remain operational when traditional access points fail?
• RQ2 What game-theoretic mechanism ensures sustainable and fair resource allocation in a LoRaWAN-assisted public safety network?
• RQ3 How can memory and energy constraints be embedded as strategic agreements in a decentralized resource allocation framework?
• RQ4 To what extent can the proposed model maintain network performance and service continuity in the complete absence of traditional APs?
• RQ5 How does the self-enforcing game-theoretic approach compare to conventional resource allocation in terms of resource conservation and network resilience?

Key findings

• The proposed game-theoretic model achieves Nash equilibrium, ensuring stable and self-enforcing resource allocation across LoRaWAN gateways and public safety servers.
• Resource utilization gains reach up to 40% higher compared to the baseline scenario without failure recovery mechanisms.
• Network sustainability is significantly improved, with stable operation maintained even when all traditional access points are offline.
• The model demonstrates high resilience in resource conservation, preserving energy and memory under prolonged emergency conditions.
• The probability of continuing service under failure conditions increases substantially, with sustained connectivity maintained through optimized LoRaWAN utilization.
• The self-enforcing nature of the game ensures compliance without centralized enforcement, reducing operational overhead and cost.