Abstract:The mobile ad hoc network is a multi-hop wireless network, which relies on the cooperation and retransmission between nodes to enhance the performance of networks. If the content is deployed in the appropriate location in the network, it will reduce the nodes' cost to get the data, and improve the performance of the network greatly. Since nodes are rational, they do not want to work with others on content deployment if there is no profit. In our work, an incentive method based on virtual credit is used in content deployment to encourage the cooperation among nodes on content deployment, then the performance of networks can be improved and the cost can be reduced. The experimental results show that the incentive method can reduce the content deployment cost effectively.