Modelling incentives and protocols for collaboration in mobile ad hoc networks

ABSTRACT

Ad hoc networks are self-configuring networks of mobile nodes, connected by wireless links. If a destination node is beyond the transmission range of an origin node, then the nodes must cooperate to provide a multi-hop route. Any node can act as a sender, receiver or transit node. It is in a node's interest to be a sender or receiver, but it is less clear what the value is of forwarding traffic on behalf of other nodes. The nodes should therefore be given incentives to act as transit nodes, because otherwise the network would fail to function. A way to do so is by introducing for each node a credit balance, where nodes use credits to pay for the costs of sending their own traffic, and earn credits by forwarding traffic from other nodes.

The incentive scheme requires that the information needed to compute the credit balance at each node must be locally available at the node. In this paper we present a model of a signalling protocol that obtains and distributes the prices that the nodes charge for processing flows so that the credit balances can be locally computed at each node. Simulation experiments show that the protocol can efficiently gather and distribute the control information such that effective flow allocation takes place for reasonable values of the signalling rate and signal processing delays.

REFERENCES

• 1: T. Camp, J. Boleng, and V. Davies. A survey of mobility models for ad hoc network research. Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing, 2:483--582, 2002.
• 2: Jon Crowcroft , Richard Gibbens , Frank Kelly , Sven Östring, Modelling incentives for collaboration in mobile ad hoc networks, Performance Evaluation, v.57 n.4, p.427-439, August 2004 [doi>10.1016/j.peva.2004.03.003]
• 3: J. Göbel, M. Mandjes, and A. Krzesinski. Analysis of an ad hoc network with autonomously moving nodes. In Australasian Telecommunication Networks and Applications ATNAC 2007 Conference Proceedings, pages 41--46, December 2007.
• 4: F. Kelly. Charging and rate control for elastic traffic. European Transactions on Telecommunications, 8:33--37, 1997.
• 5: F. Kelly, A. Maulloo, and D. Tan. Rate control in communication networks: Shadow prices, proportional fairness and stability. Journal of the Operational Research Society, 49:237--252, 1998.
• 6: F. Kelly, A. Maulloo, and D. Tan. Rate control in communication networks: Shadow prices, proportional fairness and stability. Journal of the Operational Research Society, 49:237--252, 1998.
• 7: T. B. Reddy, I. Karthigeyan, B. Manoj, and C. S. R. Murthy. Quality-of-service provisioning in ad hoc wireless networks: a survey of issues and solutions. Journal of Ad Hoc Networks, 4(1):82--124, January 2006.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.2 COMPUTER-COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
      C.2.1 Network Architecture and Design
          Subjects: Wireless communication

General Terms:
Performance

Keywords:
congestion prices, distributed control, incentives for collaboration, mobile ad hoc networks, scalability, self-organization