In this paper, a model for multi-hop power line communication is stud- ied in which a number of smart sensors, e.g., smart meters, seek to minimize the delay experienced during the transmission of their data to a common control cen- ter through multi-hop power line communications. This problem is modeled as a network formation game and an algorithm is proposed for modeling the dynamics of network formation. The proposed algorithm is based on a myopic best response process in which each smart sensor can autonomously choose the path that con- nects it to the control center through other smart sensors. Using the proposed algorithm, the smart sensors can choose their transmission path while optimizing a cost that is a function of the overall achieved transmission delay. This transmis- sion delay captures a tradeoff between the improved channel conditions yielded by multi-hop transmission and the increase in the number of hops. It is shown that, using this network formation process, the smart sensors can self-organize into a tree structure which constitutes a Nash network. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm presents significant gains in terms of reducing the average achieved delay per smart sensor of at least 28.7% and 60.2%, relative to the star network and a nearest neighbor algorithm, respectively.
['Walid Saad', 'Zhu Han', 'H.V. Poor']
A Game Theoretic Approach for Multi-hop Power Line Communications