Faculty: Elizabeth Belding and Subhash Suri
Dates/Time: Wednesdays 10-11:30am
Location: CS Conference Room
Course ID: Contact Sandy Jacobs (jacobs@cs.ucsb.edu)

Ad hoc networks rely on the cooperation of participating nodes to route data between source and destination pairs that are outside each other's communication range. Because such data forwarding consumes valuable (and scarce) battery power, each node along the path has an inherent disincentive to cooperate. This tension between cooperation and cost invites a game-theoretic study, where each node must strategically decide the degree to which it must volunteer its resources for the common good of the network. Afterall, how does a node's level of influence its benefit from its membership in the network?

In this seminar, we will study a collection of recent papers that shed light on various aspects of this complex phenomenon. Students will be expected to read a small set of related papers, summarize and present their main contributions, offer their own critique, and formulate relevant research problems.

• Wednesday, March 31
  Introduction to Game Theory
  Speaker: Chiranjeeb Buragohain

• Wednesday, April 7
  No class - screening exam

• Wednesday, April 14
  "Equilibria in Topology Control Games for Ad hoc Networks", Eidenbenz, Kumar, Zust. DialM-POMC '03.
  Speaker: Stefan Karpinski

• Wednesday, April 21
  "Stability of Multipacket Slotted Aloha with Selfish Users and Perfect Information", IEEE Infocom, 2003.
  Speaker: Arash Nikkar

• Wednesday, April 28
  Sprite: A Simple, Cheat-Proof, Credit-Based System for Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks", Zong, Chen, Yang, IEEE Infocom 2003.
  Speaker: Ted Huffmire

• Wednesday, May 5
  "Ad hoc-VCG: a Truthful and Cost-Efficient Routing Protocol for Mobile Ad hoc Networks with Selfish Agents", Anderegg and Eidenbenz, Mobicom 2003.
  Speaker: Kimaya Sanzgiri

• Wednesday, May 12
  "Cooperation in Wireless Ad hoc Networks", Srinivasan, Nuggehalli, Chiasserini and Rao, IEEE Infocom, 2003.
  Speaker: Gayatri Swamynathan

• Wednesday, May 19
  "Modeling Cooperation in Mobile Ad hoc Networks: A Formal Description of Selfishness", Urpi, Bonuccelli and Giordano, WiOPT 2003.
  Speaker: Anders Lindgren

• Wednesday, May 26
  "Characterizing Selfishly Constructed Overlay Routing Networks", Chun Fonseca, Stoica, and Kubiatowicz, Infocom 2004.
  Speaker: Egil Oesthus

• Wednesday, June 2
  "Efficient Power Control via Pricing in Wireless Data Networks", Saraydar, Mandayam and Goodman, IEEE Transactions on Communications, February 2002.
  Speaker: Irfan Sheriff

Books:

• Game Theory and Strategy, Philip Straffin.
• An Introduction to Game Thoery, Martin Osborne.
• Applications of Game Theory in Ad hoc Networks, Juha Leino, Master's Thesis, Helisnki University of Technology, 2003.