Trust establishment with data fusion for secure routing in MANETs

Mobile Ad hoc NETworks (MANETs) are a promising communication technology for tactical environments and emergency response operations. However, the features of MANETs, including dynamic topology and open wireless medium, lead to many security vulnerabilities. Malicious nodes can drop or modify packets that are received from other nodes and diminish the reliability of networks. Therefore, secure routing in MANETs is an important area of research. In this paper, we propose a scheme that enhances routing security based on trust. In the proposed scheme, in order to improve the accuracy of trust values with indirect observations, we use Dempster-Shafer theory of evidence to fuse observers' opinions. Consequently, a more accurate trust value can be calculated from indirect observations. We then utilize the trust value to enhance the MANET routing protocol security. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.