An incentive-based leader selection mechanism for mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs)

In this paper, we study the problem of leader selection in the presence of selfish nodes in mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs). In order to encourage selfish nodes to assume the leadership role, some form of incentive mechanism is required. We present an incentive-based leader selection mechanism in which incentives are incorporated in the form of credit transfer to the leader, which motivates nodes to compete with each other for assuming the leadership role. The competition among nodes is modeled as a series of one-on-one incomplete information, alternating offers bargaining games. Furthermore, we propose an efficient algorithm in order to reduce the communication overhead imposed on the network for selecting a new leader, in case the current leader is disconnected from the network due to reasons such as mobility and battery depletion. Simulation results show that the proposed mechanism not only increases the overall lifetime of a network, but also decreases the amount of imposed communication overhead on the network in comparison with the traditional leader selection algorithms.