Secured Mobile Ad-Hoc Network (MANET) Using Lightweight Encryption Scheme

Abstract

The integration of Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption into the Routing protocol known as Ad Hoc On-Demand Distance Vector (AODV) enhances the security and confidentiality of control messages exchanged between nodes. This work explores the implementation of AES-128 bits encryption in AODV called Lightweight AODV (LwAODV) to protect critical routing information from unauthorized access and eavesdropping. AES-128 bits encryption was used to encrypt the payload Route Request (RREQ) packets. The encryption uses randomly generated symmetric key for each packet. The system decrypts the incoming encrypted payload RREQ packet by retrieving the decryption key from the packet header. The decrypted payload RREQ packet is then processed and used for route discovery. Simulation was performed using network simulator 2 and object tool command language. The LwAODV was benchmarked with the traditional AODV, using packet delivery ration, packet drop ratio, throughput and control overhead as metrics. The result showed that the LwAODV performed almost the same as the traditional AODV. This makes LwAODV better and safer because of the extra layer of security through the lightweight encryption.