A biometric authentication approach for high security ad-hoc networks

With the rapid development of wireless technology, various mobile devices have been developed for military and civilian applications. Defense research and development has shown increasing interest in ad-hoc networks because a military has to be mobile. Peer-to-peer is a good architecture for mobile communication in coalition operations. Since there is no need for a dedicated server, users can dynamically route information through the network to anywhere at any time. However, this architecture brings a new challenge in user authentication, which is normally carried out in an authentication server that is absent in ad-hoc networks. In this paper, a biometric authentication model is presented to enhance information security in ad-hoc networks. Using this model, a peer is authenticated with biometrics when joining an existing group even without the presence of an authentication server.