Formal Validation of Credibility and Accuracy Assessment of Safety Messages in VANETs

Abstract

In Vehicular Ad hoc NETworks (VANETs), vehicles exchange safety messages containing valuable information about traffic environment to increase roads’ safety. The critical nature of these messages entails securing them before considering them. In this context, the credibility and the accuracy assessment of these included safety information arises as a necessity since the consumption of false or imprecise ones by vehicles may cause hazardous consequences. To treat this requirement, we proposed the scheme [1] enabling vehicles to evaluate the credibility and the accuracy of the contents of the safety messages exchanged in VANETs. That scheme is based on three modules: a reputation module, a time and location closeness estimation module, and a majority module. A vehicle can use these modules in a separated or joint way according to the circumstances. Since that scheme is error prone, we conducted in [2], a formal validation, using inference system, to prove the soundness and the completeness of these three modules and their combination. In this paper, we complete that formal validation of [1] by handling the junctions of the three basic modules two by two. To do this, we first completed the inference system in [2] so that the junctions of the three modules two by two become incorporated. A formal verification using this holistic inference system was proposed in a second step to prove the soundness and the completeness of these junctions. This verification's obtained results confirmed the validity of the said junctions for being sound and complete.