Game-theoretic algorithm stimulating cooperation in multi-hop wireless networks

In wireless multi-hop networks, energy and resource constrained nodes may be unwilling to forward packets for their neighbors to save their energy resources. This behavior of nodes can cause decrease in network throughput and may deteriorate network performance. While designing distributed game-theoretic algorithms for repeated packet forwarding game, most of the previous works have neglected the noise factor of wireless environment on the action of nodes. In this paper, we propose a novel distributed game-theoretic algorithm that motivates cooperation among selfish nodes in wireless conditions. Our algorithm is compared with other well-known gametheoretic algorithms and simulation results are achieved to prove the algorithm´s optimality even under noise. Under the Evolutionary Game Theory (EGT) framework, our algorithm also achieves high evolutionary dominance where nodes employing it can resist invasion and also invade other strategies. Our proposed model will not only provide security and data integrity but also increase network lifetime by reducing the packet drop rate in the network.