A Fair and Secure Cluster Formation Process for Ad Hoc Networks

Abstract

An efficient approach for organizing large ad hoc networks is to divide the nodes into multiple clusters and designate, for each cluster, a clusterhead which is responsible for holding intercluster control information. The role of a clusterhead entails rights and duties. On the one hand, it has a dominant position in front of the others because it manages the connectivity and has access to other node¿s sensitive information. But on the other hand, the clusterhead role also has some associated costs. Hence, in order to prevent malicious nodes from taking control of the group in a fraudulent way and avoid selfish attacks from suitable nodes, the clusterhead needs to be elected in a secure way. In this paper we present a novel solution that guarantees the clusterhead is elected in a cheat-proof manner.