Maximal Group Membership in Ad Hoc Networks

International audienceThe notion of Group communication has long been introduced as a core service of distributed systems. More recently, this notion appeared with a somewhat different meaning in the field of mobile ad hoc systems. In this context, we study the group membership problem. After specifying the basic safety properties of such groups and a maximality criterion based on cliques, we propose a group membership algorithm. Lastly, with respect to this criterion, we compare our algorithm with two group membership algorithms for ad hoc environments. Moreover, a formal description in TLA+ has been programmed and verified by model-checking for small networks

A Formal Framework for Mobile Ad hoc Networks in Real-Time Maude

Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) are increasingly popular and deployed in a wide range of environments. However, it is challenging to formally analyze a MANET, both because there are few reasonably accurate formal models of mobility, and because the large state space caused by the movements of the nodes renders straight-forward model checking hard. In particular, the combination of wireless communication and node movement is subtle and does not seem to have been adequately addressed in previous formal methods work. This paper presents a formal executable and parameterized modeling framework for MANETs in Real-Time Maude that integrates several mobility models and wireless communication. We illustrate the use of our modeling framework with the Ad hoc On-Demand Distance Vector (AODV) routing protocol, which allows us to analyze this protocol under different mobility models.Ope

Parameterized Verification of Safety Properties in Ad Hoc Network Protocols

We summarize the main results proved in recent work on the parameterized verification of safety properties for ad hoc network protocols. We consider a model in which the communication topology of a network is represented as a graph. Nodes represent states of individual processes. Adjacent nodes represent single-hop neighbors. Processes are finite state automata that communicate via selective broadcast messages. Reception of a broadcast is restricted to single-hop neighbors. For this model we consider a decision problem that can be expressed as the verification of the existence of an initial topology in which the execution of the protocol can lead to a configuration with at least one node in a certain state. The decision problem is parametric both on the size and on the form of the communication topology of the initial configurations. We draw a complete picture of the decidability and complexity boundaries of this problem according to various assumptions on the possible topologies.Comment: In Proceedings PACO 2011, arXiv:1108.145

Virtual Communication Stack: Towards Building Integrated Simulator of Mobile Ad Hoc Network-based Infrastructure for Disaster Response Scenarios

Responses to disastrous events are a challenging problem, because of possible damages on communication infrastructures. For instance, after a natural disaster, infrastructures might be entirely destroyed. Different network paradigms were proposed in the literature in order to deploy adhoc network, and allow dealing with the lack of communications. However, all these solutions focus only on the performance of the network itself, without taking into account the specificities and heterogeneity of the components which use it. This comes from the difficulty to integrate models with different levels of abstraction. Consequently, verification and validation of adhoc protocols cannot guarantee that the different systems will work as expected in operational conditions. However, the DEVS theory provides some mechanisms to allow integration of models with different natures. This paper proposes an integrated simulation architecture based on DEVS which improves the accuracy of ad hoc infrastructure simulators in the case of disaster response scenarios.Comment: Preprint. Unpublishe

Design and implementation of an on-demand ad-hoc routing algorithm for a positional communication system.

Thesis (M.Sc.Eng.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2003.A mobile ad-hoc network is an autonomous network of mobile devices that are connected via wireless links. In such networks there is no pre-existing infrastructure and nodes are free to move in a random fashion. Due to this mobility mobile ad-hoc networks have dynamic topologies. A host in the network typically has limited bandwidth and energy resources. Routing is a major challenge in the development of such systems and there have been many solutions proposed in the recent past. The aim of this work is to design and implement a routing scheme for a Positional Communication System (PCS). The PCS is a network of mobile handheld pocket PCs connected via wireless interfaces. The system allows voice and data communication between nodes in the network. This dissertation addresses the process of designing a routing protocol for an ad-hoc network. There have been many proposed algorithms that solve the routing problem in a mobile ad-hoc network. It is a difficult task to compare the performance of'these protocols qualitatively as there are many parameters that affect network performance. Various simulation packages for networks of this type exist. One such package is the Network Simulator (NS-2). It is a discrete time event simulator that can be used to model wired and wireless networks. This dissertation presents NS-2 simulations that compare four recently proposed routing algorithms. From this comparison study it is shown that on-demand algorithms perform best in a mobile ad-hoc environment. The dissertation then describes the design of a novel on-demand routing algorithm. The ondemand algorithms proposed thus far use a blind flooding technique during the route discovery process. This method is inefficient and creates excessive routing overhead. The routing protocol proposed in the dissertation implements a query localization technique that significantly reduces the network traffic. The protocol also introduces a load checking metric in addition to the metric used by most on-demand schemes, namely hop count. Simulation results show that such a scheme makes the on-demand routing algorithm more efficient and scalable than existing ones. It is widely believed that prior to implementing a routing protocol in real world systems it is essential that it is tested and validated on a test-bed. The dissertation presents the implementation of an on-demand routing algorithm in a Positional Communication System test-bed, where each handheld PC in the network runs an embedded Linux operating system

A Formal Framework for Modeling Trust and Reputation in Collective Adaptive Systems

Trust and reputation models for distributed, collaborative systems have been studied and applied in several domains, in order to stimulate cooperation while preventing selfish and malicious behaviors. Nonetheless, such models have received less attention in the process of specifying and analyzing formally the functionalities of the systems mentioned above. The objective of this paper is to define a process algebraic framework for the modeling of systems that use (i) trust and reputation to govern the interactions among nodes, and (ii) communication models characterized by a high level of adaptiveness and flexibility. Hence, we propose a formalism for verifying, through model checking techniques, the robustness of these systems with respect to the typical attacks conducted against webs of trust.Comment: In Proceedings FORECAST 2016, arXiv:1607.0200