Enhanced access control in hybrid MANETs through utility-based pre-authentication control

We study the issue of efficient network access control in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) with Internet connectivity through static gateways. This research issue is interesting in many scenarios, specially those in which operators deploy the MANET as an access network to their infrastructure.The goal is to provide a mechanism allowing Internet gateways to accept only authorized traffic without jeopardizing the overall network performance. Unlike traditional schemes in which ad hoc nodes need to get authenticated with their new gateway as they move around, we propose a solution based on pre‐authentication. It uses utility‐based optimal control to decide with which gateways to pre‐authenticate over time. Our simulation results show that the proposed scheme outperforms traditional schemes over a variety of scenarios and network parameters. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.