Trust-Based and Energy-Aware Incentive Routing Protocol for Multi-Hop Wireless Networks

Node cooperation in relaying others´ packets and route stability are essential for high-performance multi-hop wireless networks and reliable data transmission. In this paper, we propose routing protocol called TETO for stimulating node cooperation and establishing stable routes. TETO uses credits (or micropayment) to stimulate the nodes´ cooperation and processes the payment receipts to evaluate the nodes´ quality of packet-relay in terms of trust values. Stable routes are established through the highly trusted nodes having sufficient residual energy. Extensive analysis and simulations demonstrate that TETO can secure the payment and trust calculation and significantly improve route stability and thus the packet delivery ratio.