{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,27]],"date-time":"2025-12-27T07:14:25Z","timestamp":1766819665101,"version":"build-2065373602"},"reference-count":35,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"12","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2022,6,13]],"date-time":"2022-06-13T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1655078400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Dutch 4TU.NIRICT Intelligent Long-range WiFi project"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>One of the latest protocols developed for the Internet of Things networks is IEEE 802.11ah, proposed by the WiFi Alliance. The new channel access mechanism in IEEE 802.11ah, which is called Restricted Access Window, aims at reducing the contention between the stations by allowing only selected stations to transmit data at certain time slots. Stations may exhibit selfish behavior to maximize their own throughput. This will come at the cost of the overall network quality of service. In this paper, we first analyze the default behavior of the IEEE 802.11ah protocol in terms of fairness. We then introduce various percentages of selfish stations and observe how the network\u2019s quality of service in terms of fairness, throughput and packet-loss are affected. After establishing the inherent fairness of IEEE 802.11ah, we analyze applicability of two existing selfish behavior detection algorithms designed for IEEE 802.11 to the IEEE 802.11ah protocol. Due to their poor performance, we propose a new definition of \u2019selfish behavior\u2019 specifically for IEEE 802.11ah, based on which we present a new algorithm for detecting selfish behavior. To combat selfish behavior and to create a better fairness, throughput and lower packet loss, we consequently present a novel mitigation algorithm called Selfish Stations Quarantine Punishment Algorithm (SSQPA). The proposed algorithm takes advantage of the RAW grouping to isolate selfish stations from the honest stations, thus mitigating the effect of the selfish behavior. SSQPA comes in two variants: honest stations-centric and network-centric. Our experimental results show that both variants can successfully mitigate selfish behavior effects in IEEE 802.11ah networks and either one can be used depending on the goal of the network.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s22124472","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,6,13]],"date-time":"2022-06-13T22:00:38Z","timestamp":1655157638000},"page":"4472","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":3,"title":["Selfish Behavior in IEEE 802.11ah Networks: A Detection Algorithm and Mitigation Strategies"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"22","author":[{"given":"Yuliyan","family":"Georgiev","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Eindhoven University of Technology, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Richard","family":"Verhoeven","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Eindhoven University of Technology, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Nirvana","family":"Meratnia","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Eindhoven University of Technology, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,6,13]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","unstructured":"(2021, October 31). 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