An Efficient Reputation Management Model based on Game Theory for Vehicular Networks

In this paper, we investigate the concept of reputation to improve the resistance of vehicular networks against malicious and misbehaving vehicles. We propose a robust reputation management system, which consists of a model for reputation calculation and a credibility model to enhance network efficiency. The reputation score or value reflects the behavior of a vehicle towards other vehicles and network services (selfish, cooperative, malicious, misbehaving, etc.); while the credibility of vehicles is used to determine whether a reputation score given by a vehicle is correct to deal with malicious vehicles that use reputation calculation to spoil the network operation. We first describe how the reputation score of each vehicle is determined. Then, we introduce a non-cooperative game, where each vehicle aims to maximize its credibility. The effectiveness of the proposed model is demonstrated through extensive simulations.