CReP: A Packet Forwarding Protocol in Mobile Social Networks

Abstract

In the era computing, without the knowledge of the whole network and absence of end-to-end paths, packet forwarding has gained crucial importance in autonomous mobile social networks (MSNs). A mobile social network provides a platform to collect users' mobility information via mobile devices and encourages many location-aware services. MSNs allow users to discover and share content with each other. This content can be like exhibitions or conference information. In this paper, we proposed Credit with Reputation and Punishment based (CReP) packet forwarding protocol in MSNs to reduce delivery overhead and to increase packet delivery ratio. The analytic analysis shows that CReP protocol achieves the best strategy to forward packet among mixed cooperative and selfish devices. Further, extensive simulation results show that CReP protocol offers much better performance, regarding delivery overhead and delivery ratio than the selfish epidemic, incentive forwarding, and ICMP protocol.