Resilience Evaluation and Enhancement in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Abstract

Understanding network behavior that undergoes challenges is essential to constructing a resilient and survivable network. Due to the mobility and wireless channel properties, it is more difficult to model and analyze mobile ad hoc networks under various challenges. We provide a comprehensive model to assess the vulnerability of mobile ad hoc networks in face of malicious attacks. We analyze comprehensive graph-theoretical properties and network performance of the dynamic networks under attacks against the critical nodes using both synthetic and real-world mobility traces. Motivated by Minimum Spanning Tree and small-world networks, we propose a network enhancement strategy by adding long-range links. We compare the performance of different enhancement strategies by evaluating a list of robustness measures. Our study provides insights into the design and construction of resilient and survivable mobile ad hoc networks.