Rock-Scissors-Paper cycle of cooperation strategies in Opportunistic Mobile Networks

Opportunistic Mobile Networks (OMNs) are characterized by intermittent connectivity among the nodes, which results in lack of end-to-end communication paths. The nodes depend upon the other nodes for forwarding their messages and, therefore, the intermediate nodes play the crucial role of cooperation in forwarding the messages of the others nodes. Many existing mechanisms - for example, incentive- and punishment-based schemes - are costlier in OMNs, since in both of these schemes it is required to trace the recipient nodes for providing credit/punishment. In this work, we study the problem of cooperation by considering three groups of nodes based on three strategies - cooperate, exploit, and isolate. The cooperators help the other nodes for forwarding their messages. The exploiters, on the other hand, use other nodes as free-riders without helping them in forwarding the messages. Finally, the isolators neither take help, nor provide so to the other nodes in forwarding the messages. We investigate the impact of such behaviors on the performance of message delivery using synthetic and real-life traces. The simulation results confirm the formation of a Rock-Scissors-Paper (RSP) cycle, when the sizes of the groups, and hence, the dominating strategy, varies. Further, the delivery ratio of the messages increases upto 20%-35%, when most of the nodes in the network choose to cooperate.

[1]  Yin Zhang,et al.  Incentive-aware routing in DTNs , 2008, 2008 IEEE International Conference on Network Protocols.

[2]  Vikram Srinivasan,et al.  Cooperation in wireless ad hoc networks , 2003, IEEE INFOCOM 2003. Twenty-second Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies (IEEE Cat. No.03CH37428).

[3]  E. H. Simpson,et al.  The Interpretation of Interaction in Contingency Tables , 1951 .

[4]  Yan Zhang,et al.  The Peer's Dilemma: A general framework to examine cooperation in pure peer-to-peer systems , 2012, Comput. Networks.

[5]  Levente Buttyán,et al.  Barter trade improves message delivery in opportunistic networks , 2010, Ad Hoc Networks.

[6]  Kevin R. Fall,et al.  A delay-tolerant network architecture for challenged internets , 2003, SIGCOMM '03.

[7]  Levente Buttyán,et al.  Barter-based cooperation in delay-tolerant personal wireless networks , 2007, 2007 IEEE International Symposium on a World of Wireless, Mobile and Multimedia Networks.

[8]  Mohan Kumar,et al.  CRISP: collusion-resistant incentive-compatible routing and forwarding in opportunistic networks , 2012, MSWiM '12.

[9]  Xiaodong Lin,et al.  SMART: A Secure Multilayer Credit-Based Incentive Scheme for Delay-Tolerant Networks , 2009, IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology.

[10]  Pan Hui,et al.  Pocket switched networks and human mobility in conference environments , 2005, WDTN '05.

[11]  Clifford H. Wagner.  Simpson's Paradox in Real Life , 1982 .

[12]  Sudip Misra,et al.  Could human intelligence enhance communication opportunities in mission-oriented opportunistic networks? , 2012, MiSeNet '12.

[13]  Hui-mei Lu,et al.  Cooperation in delay tolerant networks , 2010, 2010 2nd International Conference on Signal Processing Systems.

[14]  C. Hauert,et al.  Volunteering as Red Queen Mechanism for Cooperation in Public Goods Games , 2002, Science.

[15]  Xiaofei Wang,et al.  Reputation-based scheme for delay tolerant networks , 2011, Proceedings of 2011 International Conference on Computer Science and Network Technology.

[16]  Vinton G. Cerf,et al.  Delay-tolerant networking: an approach to interplanetary Internet , 2003, IEEE Commun. Mag..

[17]  Jörg Ott,et al.  The ONE simulator for DTN protocol evaluation , 2009, SIMUTools 2009.

[18]  L. Felkins.  The Social Dilemmas , 2015 .

[19]  Cauligi S. Raghavendra,et al.  Spray and wait: an efficient routing scheme for intermittently connected mobile networks , 2005, WDTN '05.