Distributed Self-policing Architecture for Fostering Node Cooperation in Wireless Mesh Networks

Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) are evolving to be the key technology of the future. The self-configuring nature of WMNs and the ease, with which a mesh router/mesh point can be added, makes it pertinent to ensure their secure operation. All the routing protocols in WMNs naively assume the nodes to be co-operative in forwarding each other’s packets. However, a node can behave selfishly by discretely dropping other’s packets, in an attempt to maximize its throughput. In this paper, we present a distributed scheme called, Distributed Self-policing Architecture for Fostering Node Cooperation (DSAFNC), for enforcing cooperation among the nodes in a WMN. We use a distributed approach in isolating any selfish node with the help of localized detection agents called sink nodes. We study the effectiveness of our scheme through simulations using ns-2 which reaffirm that D-SAFNC can successfully prevent any performance degradation due to the presence of selfish nodes.