Assessing trustworthiness of nodes to enhance performance in mobile ad hoc networks

This paper presents an application of reputation based trust assessment model in mobile ad hoc network setting. A game between the Sender (originator) and Intermediary (forwarder) nodes in the network is modelled and plugged-in to a trust assessment framework that classifies feedback according to past acquaintances between the nodes. Simulations for the experiments have been carried out in an Iterated Prisoner's dilemma like setting, where each player represents a network node. Through our experiments we show that having trust model decreases the Packet Drop Ratio (PDR) in an ad hoc network setting. Further, the results show that Gain through the utility and savings of energy is better with application of the trust model.