Probabilistic packet relaying in wireless mobile ad hoc networks

Abstract

A wireless mobile ad hoc network consists of a number of devices that form a temporary network that operates without a support of any fixed infrastructure. Its distributed nature, lack of a single authority, and limited battery resources may lead participating devices to be reluctant to packet forwarding, which is a key assumption of such a network. This paper demonstrates how cooperation can be reached by means of a new trust-based probabilistic packet relaying scheme. Its most significant properties are relativity of the evaluation of trust and the use of activity as one of the trust measures. Computational experiments demonstrated that the more selfish nodes were present in the network, the more reasonable was to use strict strategies by the remaining nodes, which in turns led to a good protection of the network from free-riders. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.