Stability and security in wireless cooperative networks: Providing incentives for cooperation

Abstract

In this chapter we review and analyse various ways of encouraging cooperation and of mitigating misbehaviour in cooperative communication systems. Our results are, in principle, applicable to both wireless and wired networks.We start with discussing possible approaches to accountability in cooperative communication systems and incentives, which can to be use in order to foster cooperation in such systems. We present both an analytical and a simulation model of cooperation in wireless ad hoc networks. The analytical model is based on evolutionary game theory. The nodes are adaptive and can dynamically adjust their strategies in order to maximise their own utility. We show that in the case of agents learning by imitation, a cooperative behaviour is an asymptotically stable equilibrium of our model. This promising result suggests that correctly designed reputation and trust mechanisms can facilitate the emergence of sustainable ad hoc communication networks. We also introduce a generic simulation model, which utilises a multiagent simulation platform and can be easily adapted in order to investigate other kinds of cooperative communication systems, such as file-sharing networks. © 2006 Springer. All Rights Reserved.