Cluster-based trust evaluation scheme in an ad hoc network

Abstract

This paper presents a new trust evaluation scheme in an ad hoc network To overcome the limited information about unfamiliar nodes and to reduce the required memory space, we propose a cluster-based trust evaluation scheme, in which neighboring nodes form a cluster and select one node as a cluster head. The head issues a trust value certificate that can be referred to by its non-neighbor nodes. In this way, an evaluation of an unfamiliar node's trust can be done very efficiently and precisely. In this paper, we present a trust evaluation metric using this scheme and some operations for forming and managing a cluster. An analysis of the proposed scheme over some security problems is also presented.