Prediction-based Authentication for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Abstract

Ensuring that a path in a mobile ad hoc network is secure by means of authenticating every node in the route carries considerable overhead and results in packet loss. In this thesis we propose a prediction mechanism to determine a new link when the existing the link is fading. Once the predicted node has been determined it is authenticated. The objective of this research is to enable prediction and authentication to be completed before the current link breaks. Simulation results show that the proposed approach results in fewer packets being dropped, while ensuring a secure route. The proposed approach is compared to traditional protocols such as DSDV which do not employ any form of prediction. The prediction scheme we are using is based on the location based routing protocol LTR.