In autonomous ad hoc networks, nodes usually belong to different authorities and pursue different goals. In order to maximize their own performance, nodes in such networks tend to be selfish, and are not willing to forward packets for the benefit of other nodes. Meanwhile, some nodes might behave maliciously and try to disrupt the network and waste other nodes' resources. In this chapter, we present an attack-resilient cooperation-stimulation (ARCS) system for autonomous ad hoc networks to stimulate cooperation among selfish nodes and defend against malicious attacks. In the ARCS system, the damage that can be caused by malicious nodes can be bounded, cooperation among selfish nodes can be enforced, and fairness among nodes can also be achieved. Both theoretical analysis and simulation results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the ARCS system. Another key property of the ARCS system is that it is completely self-organizing and fully distributed, and does not require any tamper-proof hardware or central management points.

Introduction

In emergency or military situations, nodes in an ad hoc network usually belong to the same authority and have a common goal. To maximize the overall system performance, nodes usually work in a fully cooperative way, and will unconditionally forward packets for each other. Emerging applications of ad hoc networks are now being envisioned also for civilian usage.