A Trustworthy and Cooperative MAC Protocol for Cognitive Vehicular Networks

A trustworthy medium access control (MAC) protocol is needed to enable recent advancements in transport systems to broadcast high-priority safety messages. Cognitive radio-based vehicle ad hoc networks (CR-VANETs) are being implemented by researchers to satisfy the rapidly rising spectrum demand with ease. However, fraudulent users may insert false emergency alarms into CR-VANETs, blocking nodes from getting the most recent traffic conditions. To ensure the dependability and credibility of the safety message conveyed over the networks, evaluating the trustworthiness of nodes has become a vital responsibility in CR-VANETs. In this study, to determine the level of trust for each node, several performance metrics of the proposed MAC protocol are evaluated cooperatively. Depending on the trust value, which is determined by the roadside unit (RSU), a malicious user (MU) is eliminated from the contention process. The simulation demonstrates that by identifying and removing malicious nodes, the throughput of the proposed protocol gradually increases.