Trust based dynamic distributed IP addressing protocol for MANETs using fuzzy rule sets

Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks (MANETs) are infrastructureless multi-hop networks. MANETs are formed by group of mobile nodes which can act as hosts or routers. The topology of the MANETs changes as the nodes enter and depart the network. The nodes in the MANETs require an IP address to communicate with each other. As the nodes merge and partition the network randomly, a pre-configuration of IP addresses is not possible. Hence there are dynamic IP addressing methods proposed for configuring the MANETs. All the existing algorithms are mainly designed to meet the basic necessities of the configuring algorithms like address uniqueness, network merging and partitioning support, Integration with routing protocols etc. These protocols do not consider the impact of misbehaving nodes in the MANETs. The performance of the configuring protocols in MANETs is highly deteriorated by the selfish nodes and overloaded nodes. Selfish nodes are nodes which seek benefits from other nodes, but refuse to share its resource or provide service to other nodes. These selfish nodes and overloaded nodes drop the protocol request packets from other nodes. This affects the normal functioning of the nodes in MANETs during the configuration process. Hence we propose a Trust based dynamic distributed IP addressing method using fuzzy logic rule sets which can detect the misbehaving nodes and select trusted nodes which can serve the IP address to the requesting nodes.