Improving Route Selection Mechanism using Trust Factor in AODV Routing Protocol for MaNeT

An ad-hoc network comprises of mobile nodes that cooperate with each other using wireless connections to route both data and control packets within the network. They are characterized by the use of wireless links, dynamically changing topology, multi-hop connectivity and decentralized routing mechanism and decision-making. The performance of Ad-hoc On Demand Vector (AODV) protocols has been modified by including the source route accumulation feature. As low transmission power of each ad-hoc node limits its communication range, the nodes must assist and trust each other in forwarding packets from one node to another. However, this implied trust relationship can be threatened by malicious nodes that may fabricate, modify or disrupt the orderly exchange of packets. Security demands that all packets be authenticated before being used. A particularly hard problem is to provide efficient broadcast authentication, which is important mechanism for MaNet. In this paper, we propose a routing algorithm which adds a field in request packet which stores trust value indicating node trust on neighbour. Based on level of trust factor, the routing information will be transmitted depending upon highest trust value among all. This not only saves the node's power by avoiding unnecessary transmitting control information but also in terms of bandwidth (channel utilization), which is very important in case of MaNet. The malicious node can attack on the control packet and misbehave in the network .The malicious node, which may or may not be trusted node. In this paper, we use trusted path irrespective of shortest or longest path which can be used for communication in the network. We are able to calculate route trust value on the complete reply path which can be utilized by source node for next forthcoming communication in the network.