Secure and Optimal Routing Protocol for Multi-hop Cellular Networks

Multi-hop Cellular Network (MCN) is a promising architecture aiming to enhance the performance of the current single hop cellular network. Indeed, it combines the flexibility of Ad Hoc networks and the benefits of the fixed infrastructure. The traffic is relayed through multi-hop communication, which can extend the coverage area and achieve high throughput. Providing security in this type of network is an important issue since the mobile nodes participate in the routing process. Many researchers focus on this topic by providing security for routing protocol and data transmission. In this paper, we propose a secure routing protocol for MCN. In this protocol, we address two challenges: ensuring confidentiality and integrity of routing discovery and establishing a session key to secure the data transmission after route selection. Simulation results show that the proposed protocol is efficient and it ensures a high security level against attacks.