Stimulating cooperative behavior of autonomous devices - an analysis of requirements and existing approaches

In the context of mobile and wireless devices, an information system is no longer a centralized component storing all the relevant data nor is it a decentralized component governed by a common authority. Rather, the information spread across huge numbers of autonomous mobile and wireless devices owned by independent organizations and individuals can be regarded as a highly dynamic, virtual information system. For this vision to become reality, the autonomous devices involved need to be motivated to cooperate. This cooperation needs to occur not only on the application layer, but, depending on the network architecture, also on the lower layers from the link layer on upwards. In this report, we investigate on which protocol layers cooperation is needed and what constitutes uncooperative behavior. We then identify necessary properties of incentive schemes that encourage cooperation and discourage uncooperative behavior. In this context, we examine remuneration types that are a major constituent of incentive schemes. Finally, using the example of ad hoc networks, the most challenging technical basis of a wireless information system, we compare existing incentive schemes to these characteristics