Multi-hop data dissemination with selfish nodes: Optimal decision and fair cost allocation based on the Shapley value

We consider a data dissemination scenario in a wireless network with selfish nodes. A message available at a source node has to be disseminated through the network in a multi-hop manner. In order to incentivize a node to forward the source's message to others, a forwarding cost is paid to a forwarder by its respective receiver. In the case of multicast transmission, the cost is shared among the receivers using the Shapley value (SV). Moreover, a node may exploit the maximal ratio combining (MRC) technique to receive the message from multiple transmitting nodes. In this paper, we show that in a game theoretic framework, the optimal decision of a node for receiving the message with minimum cost can be achieved by solving a linear optimization problem. In addition, we propose an algorithm by which truthfulness is a dominant strategy for the nodes and thus, fair cost allocation is guaranteed. Simulation results show that our proposed algorithm shares the cost of data dissemination among the nodes of a network in a fair manner. Compared to previous algorithms, the proposed algorithm can reduce the total cost paid by the nodes in the network for receiving messages.