AP selection game in dense IEEE 802.11 WLANs

In a dense IEEE 802.11 WLAN, arranging multiple access points (APs) to achieve suitable area coverage is an urgent problem that needs to be addressed. This paper proposes an elaborate AP selection strategy based on three types of criteria. Furthermore, to effectively implement the selection process, the AP selection decision is modeled as a limited non-cooperative game scheme, and a two-tier approximation game is adopted to determine the final selection decision for a centralized framework. Specifically, a criterion for guaranteeing wireless station (WS) fairness is proposed to realize AP selection. This algorithm takes into account the varying throughput requirements of WSs and maximizes the total throughput Quality of Service (throughput-QoS) of all WSs, thereby enhancing WS satisfaction. Additionally, this paper introduces a load-balancing AP selection algorithm aimed at enhancing network load balancing. In this algorithm, the load balancing index is optimized to distribute the load evenly among APs, thus enhancing resource utilization within the network. Moreover, a joint optimization AP selection algorithm is presented. It employs a joint optimization index to measure the comprehensive performance of the network, striking a balance between average network throughput-QoS and load balancing. Numerical simulations prove the effectiveness of the proposed AP selection strategy incorporating three different criteria. Under larger number of WS, they can improve total throughput-QoS 10%, make load balancing and multi-attribute weighted index reach 0.9770 and 0.6356, respectively.