A Service Pricing-based Two-Stage Incentive Algorithm for Socially Aware Networks

In socially aware networks, data forwarding is usually performed based on opportunistic peer-to-peer connections and using a store-and-forward method. This method requires active collaboration from all nodes. However, due to resource limitations and other factors, several nodes exhibit selfishness and are unwilling to consume their resources to assist other nodes in forwarding data. To tackle the problems of insufficient participating nodes and low willingness to participate, this paper proposes a Service pricing-based Two-stage Incentive Algorithm (STIA). First, in view of the lack of rewards for high reputation nodes in reputation incentive and the indistinguishability of prices for different service levels in credit mechanism, leading to poor incentive effects, this paper uses the service quality of nodes and their own resources to design message pricing functions as rewards for service providers and prevents nodes from making fraudulent offers by disclosing the resource status of both parties. Secondly, this paper considers the case where relay nodes will discard accepted data, thus proposing a two-stage incentive mechanism that motivates nodes to receive and forward data. Finally, in response to nodes discarding received messages due to short-term currency shortages, nodes are permitted to overdraw their currency according to their forwarding capacity under the condition of setting restrictions to increase network cooperation. Experimental simulation results show that STIA offers significant improvements in delivery ratio and latency of messages over existing incentive schemes.