Reputation routing to avoid sybil attacks in wireless sensor networks using distributed beamforming

Distributed beamforming clusters offer the potential to improve wireless sensor network (WSN) energy efficiency and reduce vulnerability to signal jamming attacks. However, they may be vulnerable to sybil attacks in which malicious nodes exaggerate their identities, thus causing link failure due to a smaller number of nodes participating in the collaborative transmission than expected. This paper first presents an analytic model to quantify the impact of these nodes, before integrating them into conventional multihop routing via a reputation-based routing framework that adapts over time to use the nodes with the best performance characteristics.