Cluster Based Group Key Management in Mobile Ad hoc Networks

†† Summary A Mobile Ad-hoc Network (MANET) is a collection of autonomous nodes or terminals which communicate with each other by forming a multi-hop radio network and maintaining connectivity in a decentralized manner. We propose a decentralized cluster based group key management scheme that uses a symmetric group key for communication within the cluster. This group key is generated by the cluster head and communicated to other members through a secure channel that uses public key cryptography. We show through simulations that clustering reduces the packet losses compared to the centralized scheme. We also discuss the method for authentication of public keys. We analyze the performance of our scheme and compare it with the existing schemes.