Performance analysis of cooperation over mobile ad hoc networks

Until recently, mobile ad hoc networks had been assumed as a collection of mobile hosts that pursue a common goal as in the military and rescue applications. In such scenarios, all the nodes are hence naturally motivated to cooperate in route discovery and forwarding packets. However, because of the tremendous growth in the use of mobile devices, the application of mobile ad hoc networks has emerged recently for the open communities. In this environment, individual nodes usually do not have a common goal, and may be advantageous not to cooperate. In this paper we address the problem of cooperation over a mobile ad hoc network for general applications. To analyze the effect of nodes´ selfish behavior, a simple but practical scheme, which lets nodes be selfish, is implemented. Several simulations are performed and the effect of the selfishness of mobile hosts on the performance of the network as well as individual nodes is evaluated.