A Trust-Based Framework for Increasing MAC Layer Reliability in Cognitive Radio VANETs

Abstract

Vehicular Ad hoc Networks (VANETs) are introduced to improve the performance of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). As safety is the most important purpose of VANETs, reliability is one of their main necessities. In the other hand, regarding the popularity of VANETs in the future of auto-technologies, the lack of bandwidth in peak traffic hours seems to be one of the most important challenges. For this purpose, utilizing Cognitive Radio (CR) technology in VANETs appears to be a proper candidate. Making the most of CR-VANETS capabilities involves cooperation between the vehicles which in turns necessitates a comprehensive trust management system among them. Considering the concept of reliability in CR-VANETs in this article, employment of trust as a mean of improving reliability is investigated. Classifying the node’s misbehaviors into three categories of selfish, malicious and incapable, a model for evaluating reliability is derived, based on which a trust based framework is presented to improve the reliability of VANET’s transmission media access. Simulation results show that considering cognitive radio and trust together can improve the reliability of VANET and can decrease the number of accidents in peak traffic hours.