Effect of altruism and punishment on selfish behavior for cooperation in Vehicular Networks

Packet forwarding in Vehicular Networks is gathering a booming interest in research area as cooperation of nodes becomes important for such a scenario. The presence of selfish nodes reluctant to transfer data packets are the most critical concern in packet forwarding. From explanations of game theory this is a social dilemma situation that gives a suboptimal outcome from a collective standpoint. Strategic solutions can be applied to these situations to enhance cooperation in repeated interactions. This paper addresses this as Public Goods game social dilemma and applies conditional Tit-for-Tat (TFT) and unconditional altruism strategies to enhance cooperation among nodes. A packet forwarding game model is developed to apply the strategic solutions. The model also implements punishment as a motivation for selfish nodes to cooperate. Simulation results support the framework to analyze the efficiency.