A secure routing protocol with node selfishness resistance in MANETs

In mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs), available nodes must act as their own router and also rely on other nodes to relay communication packets. However, some intermediate nodes may refuse to forward packets to other nodes or discard route-discovery requests from others to save power, as much as those consumed during the message transmission phase. In order to prevent node selfishness, we have proposed a novel approach to message security using a payment-based mechanism in MANETs. In this way, the proposed routing protocol with payment mechanism not only avoids the selfish nodes that may refuse to route packets, but also restrains the nodes from sending useless packets into the networks. Finally, the proposed payment mechanism ensures ad hoc communications in a selfless environment by providing economic encouragement to enforce node cooperation in MANETs.