Incentive-based reputation and cooperation mechanisms for intermittent IoT networks: A survey

Intermittent connectivity is one of the main challenges to the reliability and scalability of the Internet of Things (IoT) deployments, especially in resource-constrained or unstable environments. Reputation mechanisms have been suggested as decentralized mechanisms to enhance cooperation, prevent selfishness, and maintain service delivery in distributed and intermittently connected IoT networks. This paper discusses a systematic literature review of 26 primary studies from 2020 to 2024 found in ACM, IEEE, Scopus, ScienceDirect, and Springer using the PRISMA guidelines for article selection. The review proposes a classification framework designed for intermittently connected IoT systems that incorporates reputation sources, with dissemination techniques, and cooperative decision-making models in a single analytical lens. To our knowledge, this study is the first survey to position network intermittency and cooperation incentives at the center of the analysis, unlike other studies conducted in the wider IoT or blockchain domains. Results indicate that the application of reputation mechanisms generally enhances trust, delivery reliability, and network performance, with about 70% of studies reporting measurable performance improvements. However, more than 20% of studies have no real-world validation, with only theoretical or simulation-based evaluation. Additionally, more than 15% of the studies analyze blockchain-based approaches that offer security and decentralization benefits; however, these often have high computational overhead and little practical validation. Based on this synthesis, the survey identifies nine open research challenges, including experimental validation, methodological standardization, computational efficiency, modular system design, social trust modeling, interoperability, reputation freshness, partition-resilient trust management, and resilience to adaptive attacks.