Equilibria for Node Participation in Ad Hoc Networks - An Imperfect Monitoring Approach

In self-organizing networks, nodes are expected to perform services (such as forwarding packets) for one another. The design of incentive mechanisms that lead nodes to cooperate towards a network-wide goal is crucial for the deployment of such networks in commercial environments. In this paper we employ game theory to analyze a behavior-based incentive scheme for node cooperation in packet forwarding. Our analysis includes an evaluation of the effectiveness of the scheme in achieving an optimal solution, as well as stability considerations. One of the contributions of this work is the modeling of imperfect monitoring, recognizing that in practice nodes do not have perfect information regarding their neighbors´ actions on which to base their decisions of whether to cooperate.