Trust Based Scheme for QoS Assurance in Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks

A mobile ad-hoc network (MANET) is a peer-to-peer wireless network where nodes can communicate with each other without the use of infrastructure such as access points or base stations. These networks are self-configuring, capable of self-directed operation and hastily deployable. Nodes cooperate to provide connectivity, operates without centralized administration. Nodes are itinerant, topology can be very dynamic and nodes must be able to relay traffic since communicating nodes might be out of range. The dynamic nature of MANET makes network open to attacks and unreliability. Routing is always the most significant part for any networks. Each node should not only work for itself, but should be cooperative with other nodes. Node misbehaviour due to selfish or malicious intention could significantly degrade the performance of MANET. The Qos parameters like PDR, throughput and delay are affected directly due to such misbehaving nodes. We focus on trust management framework, which is intended to cope with misbehaviour problem of node and increase the performance of MANETs. A trust-based system can be used to track this misbehaving of nodes, spot them and isolate them from routing and provide reliability. In this paper a Trust Based Reliable AODV [TBRAODV] protocol is presented which implements a trust value for each node. For every node trust value is calculated and based trust value nodes are allowed to participate in routing or else identified to become a misbehaving node. This enhances reliability in AODV routing and results in increase of PDR, decrease in delay and throughput is maintained. This work is implemented and simulated on NS-2. Based on simulation results, the proposed protocol provides more consistent and reliable data transfer compared with general AODV, if there are misbehaving nodes in the MANET