Secure Routing and Scheduling in Ad-Hoc Cognitive Radio Networks for Public Safety

Public safety communication is a critical component of day-to-day life. The authors propose a flexible and resilient communication system using an ad-hoc cognitive radio network that fully utilizes the available spectrum resources. Two main components of the network are addressed: route discovery, i.e., identifying multiple paths from the source to the destination, and scheduling for these paths, i.e., efficiently allocating available resources to achieve an optimal transmission. Field-based routing is adopted. The authors also introduce a secure authentication and routing mechanism for this network. The authentication component leverages the social aspect of public safety communications and mitigates most basic wireless attacks. A hybrid novel reputation scheme is then proposed to allow for efficient routing in the presence of adversaries. The authors show through simulations that the proposed secure framework can efficiently reduce the transmission delay, be robust to the dynamics of channel availability, and mitigate routing attacks in a cognitive radio network.