Efficient, secure, dynamic source routing for ad-hoc networks

Routing is a must for networks that do not have a fixed point-to-point infrastructure, such as in an ad hoc wireless network that offers unrestricted mobility. A source node in such a network can communicate with a distant destination node after finding a route, relying on the intermediate nodes to transfer the packets. However, some intermediate nodes might act selfishly and drop packets for other nodes in order to save their own battery power. In this paper, we propose an algorithm to find selfish nodes and deal with them, using a modified Dynamic Source Routing (DSR) protocol, that we call Efficient Secure Dynamic Source Routing (ESDSR). Our results show an increase in the packet delivery ratio in a network containing selfish/unreliable nodes when we compare DSR with our protocol.