Greening Ad Hoc Networks through Detection and Isolation of Defecting Nodes

Abstract—Current ad hoc networks rely on a silent mutual agreement among nodes to relay packets towards the destinations. The effort made by each single node to serve the others is usually repaid with the chance to successfully set up its own traffic sessions. However, limited power, together with security concerns, can push certain nodes to refrain from cooperating. Such nodes will thus act as parasites, while the others will unawarely keep on trusting them for what concerns the mutual service agreement. In this paper we show how energy consumption in Ad Hoc Networks can be dramatically reduced if we stimulate cooperation by providing mechanisms for the detection and isolation of selfish nodes. We present a novel routing protocol exploiting a behavior-tracking algorithm based on game theory and allowing traffic to be forwarded only towards cooperative nodes. Through extensive simulations, we show how we can significantly reduce power wastage at the same time maximizing the delivery rate. Under this perspective, cooperation can definitely be seen as an incentive for all nodes, since it allows to optimize one of the most crucial parameters impacting the performance of ad hoc networks