Enhancement of ad hoc On-Demand Distance Vector protocol security using Secure Message Transmission

Abstract

The ad hoc on-demand distance vector (AODV) routing protocol offers quick adaptation to dynamic link changes, incurs low processing and memory overhead, has a low initial setup while connecting to networks, and determines unicast routes to destinations within the ad hoc network. This routing protocol allows for efficient and reliable discovery of routes. Although the connection setup delay is lower for the AODV protocol compared to other ad hoc routing protocols, such as the dynamic source routing (DSR) protocol and destination sequenced distance vector (DSDV) protocol, the AODV routing protocol involves a heavy control overload and delay while finding the routes in adverse conditions, such as the presence of malicious nodes in the network or connection failures due to network congestion. This thesis studies the secure message transmission (SMT) protocol, which safeguards data transmission against arbitrary malicious behavior of other nodes and evaluates its performance over the AODV routing protocol. The analysis of the performance of the AODV routing protocol in combination with the SMT protocol was done by considering a scenario of mobile ad hoc networks under adverse conditions, with half of the nodes acting maliciously and dropping both data and control packets. The AODV routing protocol in combination with the SMT protocol imposes up to 46% less routing overhead, delivering up to 17% more data packets, with a throughput of 12% more and end-to-end delays that are up to 24% lower than those of the native AODV routing protocols in the scenarios considered. Thus the AODV routing protocol performs well with the SMT protocol, and is reliable. The NS-2 network simulator was utilized to compare performances. The advantages of the proposed approach of using the AODV routing protocol together with the SMT protocol are more apparent in the presence of malicious nodes in the network.