A Secure and Efficient Routing Protocol with Genetic Algorithmin Mobile Ad-hoc Networks

Routing in Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks (MANETs) is achallenging task due to its nature of open medium, infrastructurelessness,dynamicity and no trusted central authority. In MANET,a node can be compromised during the route discovery process.Attackers from inside or outside can easily exploit the network.Several secure routing protocols have been proposed forMANETs. In this paper, Ad-Hoc On-Demand Distance Vector(AODV) routing protocol is considered due to the fact that ituses the shortest number of wireless hops towards a destinationas the primary metric for selecting a route with independence ofthe traffic congestion. To add security to AODV, Secure AODVwas designed to enhance security services to the original AODV.Secure AODV protocol has been designed with cryptographictechniques such as digital signatures and hash chains, which canhave a significant impact on the routing performance of AODVrouting protocol. To improve efficiency of SAODV, EnhancedSAODV (ESAODV) was proposed based on Genetic Algorithmand alternative path. The genetic algorithm optimizes the routesin terms of selected metrics. The performance and impacts ofusing AODV, S-AODV and ESAODV routing protocols werecompared using NS-2 Simulator. The simulation resultsdemonstrated that using the proposed mechanism couldsignificantly decrease the End-to-end delay and routing overhead.

Keywords:

Mobile ad-hoc network , SAODV routing protocol , genetic algorithm , end-to-end delay , packet routing overhead