Fog Computing-Assisted Trustworthy Forwarding Scheme in Mobile Internet of Things

The interaction between mobile Internet of Things (IoT) devices is based on a hybrid communication architecture. To improve packet delivery ratio, reduce end-to-end delay, and protect data privacy, designing an efficient data forwarding scheme is crucial in guaranteeing the quality of data transmission. Fog computing, a novel distributed computing framework, can decrease the amount of data transmission on the Internet and improve quality of services. In this paper, we propose a fog computing-assisted trustworthy forwarding (FCTF) scheme. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first study that investigates the role of fog infrastructure nodes (FINs) in forwarding scheme design. FCTF first selects the contact probability and the service degree as the basic trustworthy metrics between node pairs, and combines high-performance optimization algorithms to design a dynamic detection model of overlapping trustworthy communities (DOTCs). Then, we construct logical joint edge community structures on the basis of the results of DOTC and the distribution of FINs at each timestamp. Finally, based on the logical joint edge community, we define the forwarding utilities for FINs and mobile devices, respectively, and design self-adaptive forwarding rules. The experimental results prove that our FCTF scheme can enhance the delivery ratio, and decrease the latency and average hop-count more effectively, and has better routing quality compared with some popular forwarding models in mobile IoT applications.