Pre-Authentication Based Enhancement for Access Control in Hybrid MANETs

We analyze the problem of reducing packet losses due to the authentication time which is required when an ad hoc node switches across different gateways in a mobile ad hoc network connected to Internet (hybrid MANET). Our goal is to provide a mechanism allowing Internet gateways to accept only authorized traffic without decreasing the overall performance of the system. We propose a solution based on pre-authentication which uses utility-based optimal control to choose with which gateways to pre-authenticate over time. Our simulation results show that the proposed scheme outperforms traditional schemes across a variety of network scenarios and configurations.