PASER: Position Aware Secure and Efficient Route Discovery Protocol for Wireless Mesh Networks

In this paper we address an acceptable tradeoff between security and performance of the route discovery process in wireless mesh networks. We propose a Position Aware Secure and Efficient reactive hierarchical Route discovery protocol (PASER). The proposed protocol is tailored for rescue and emergency operations and aims to combat unauthorized nodes of joining the network or manipulating the route look-up process. In addition, it deals with efficiency and real-time capability requirements in such environments. From a security perspective, the novelty of PASER is the combination of digital signature with lightweight authentication tree and symmetric block cipher to secure routing messages. Another key feature is the support of nodes' geo-positions to increase the security while enabling an advanced network management. Apart from that, PASER treats the network in a hierarchical way and establishes the route discovery process to a large extent upon reactive unicast messages. PASER is generally applicable, as it does not make restrictive assumptions on the network nodes. It provides generic metrics for the constituent links of the discovered routes, allowing the implementation of any route selection algorithm. As a result, PASER enables secure and efficient routing in a wide range of wireless mesh network applications.