Analysis the cooperation strategies in mobile ad hoc networks

In mobile ad hoc network, all the packets are forwarded in a multi-hop fashion relying on the contribution of each participants. In order to encourage the cooperation between the nodes in the system, many incentive mechanisms have been proposed. Although these incentive schemes can improve the cooperation to some certain extend, they are still suffering from some drawbacks. In this paper, the efficiency of these incentive mechanisms has been analyzed based on game theory modules. Their performances have also been compared with a proposed hybrid cooperation enforcement mechanism ARM. The simulation and theoretical results show the superiority of the ARM over traditional reputation based scheme and price-based scheme.