An Optimal Game Approach for Heterogeneous Vehicular Network Selection with Varying Network Performance

Most conventional heterogeneous network selection strategies applied in heterogeneous vehicular network regard the performance of each network constant in various traffic scenarios. This assumption leads such strategies to be ineffective in the real-world performance-changing scenarios. To solve this problem, we propose an optimal game approach for heterogeneous vehicular network selection under conditions in which the performance parameters of some networks are changing. Terminals attempting to switch to the network with higher evaluation is formulated as a multi-play non-cooperative game. Heterogeneous vehicular network characteristics are thoroughly accounted for to adjust the game strategy and adapt to the vehicular environment for stability and rapid convergence. A multi-play non-cooperative game model is built to formulate network selection. A probabilistic strategy is used to gradually drive players toward convergence to prevent instability. Furthermore, a system prototype was built at the Connected and Automated Vehicle Test bed of Chang'an University (CAVTest). Its corresponding test results indicate that the proposed approach can effectively suppress the ping-pong effect caused by massive handoffs due to varying network performance and thus well outperforms the single-play strategy.