Unlike infrastructure-based networks, mobile ad hoc networks consist of nodes independent of any infrastructure. Cooperation among these nodes is essential for the sustenance of multi hop communication. However, battery and bandwidth constraints may lead nodes in an ad hoc network to adopt energy- and bandwidth-conserving strategies. As routing and packet forwarding are end results of cooperation, network performance is affected when nodes in the network behave selfishly to conserve their resources.

Our work involves characterizing selfish behavior by nodes in ad hoc networks and assessing the effectiveness of adopting tit for tat based strategies, which are meant to discourage selfish behavior in the network. We show that in an ad hoc network where other nodes act selfishly to conserve their resources, a node can benefit by adopting a generous tit for tat strategy. We also show that a node can gain benefit by avoiding selfish nodes in an ad hoc network, adopting a strategy that we call generous tit for tat with selfish avoidance (GTFT-SA)

To analyze the effectiveness of cooperation strategies in selfish ad hoc networks we create an emulation environment based on virtualization. Such an emulation environment is more flexible to changes and is simpler to replicate than real life testbeds, while providing higher fidelity than simulations.