Trust-Based Probabilistic Broadcast Scheme for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Abstract

The overhead caused by broadcast schemes cannot be neglected in mobile ad hoc networks. It is known that the probabilistic broadcast scheme is an effective approach to reduce overhead, in which nodes forward packets with a probability to reduce redundant retransmissions. In hostile environments, malicious nodes degrade network efficiency, and they should be prevented from route discovery and data transmission. In this case, routing packets forwarded by malicious nodes are redundant. This paper presents a Trust-based Probabilistic Broadcast scheme (TPB) focusing on reducing overhead, especially caused by malicious nodes, in which rebroadcast probability is determined based on nodes' trustworthiness. In order to obtain nodes' trust level, a lightweight trust management model is designed based on direct and recommended trust evidence. According to nodes' trust level, rebroadcast delay is calculated for rearranging the rebroadcast order of routing packets. Furthermore, a novel method based on nodes' trustworthiness is proposed to calculate rebroadcast probability, which prevents untrusted nodes from route discovery. The proposed trustbased probabilistic broadcast scheme is incorporated with existing routing protocol and its performance is evaluated by simulations. The numerical results show that the proposed scheme can secure network communication and reduce the routing overhead. INDEX TERMS Mobile ad hoc network, routing overhead, probabilistic broadcast, trust evaluation. I. INTRODUCTION A mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a decentralized wireless network, which is composed of some mobile nodes spontaneously. The characteristics such as easy deployment, dynamic topology, self-configuration and multi-hop communication promote MANET based applications increasing demanded in many civilian and military fields, ranging from providing emergency communication in natural disasters and transmitting critical information on the battlefield. However, the performance of MANET is susceptible to routing overhead due to resource constraints in terms of wireless resource and computing power. Furthermore, MANET is vulnerable to attacks from malicious nodes because there is no centralized The associate editor coordinating the review of this manuscript and approving it for publication was Xu Chen.

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