A Probabilistic Behavioral Model for Selfish Neighbors in a Wireless Ad Hoc Network

Summary Some of the challenges in mobile ad hoc networks and sensor networks are the techniques to cope up with selfish behavior of neighboring nodes towards network functions such as routing and forwarding. To devise such techniques it is mandatory to study and analyze the behavior of selfish neighbors under controlled environment and as a result, this paper introduces a probabilistic model that observes the behavior of an intermediary node while forwarding packets for others on a route between a source and a destination. The model formally uses Markov process to represent a cluster of one-hop neighbors as a single collaborative point. From the investigation of the simulated results, it is found that the model is able to regulate the collaboration based on residual energy, the number of neighbors in the cluster, and other network related parameters significantly.