Abstract: In order to solve the problem that existing simple barter trade(SBT) incentive mechanisms in opportunistic networks degrade the network performance, a debt-based barter trade(DBT) incentive mechanism was proposed. The DBT changes the rigid equivalent barter trade principal in SBT by introducing debt relationship, which increases the number of forwarding data in a single trade and then improves the network performance. A trust-based punishment scheme and a debt-based caching strategy was designed to guarantee that debt relationship credibly run. Simulations show that DBT can obtain better network performance than SBT and effectively motivate nodes' cooperations.

Key words: opportunistic networks, selfishness, barter trade incentive mechanisms, debt