ROLSR: A robust Optimized Link State Routing protocol for military Ad-Hoc networks

The Optimized Link State Routing protocol (OLSR) has valuable features for mobile ad hoc networks such as no route discovery delay and ease of integration into existing systems, which makes it well-suited for time critical military and emergency rescue applications. However, security, trust, and robustness are still a sizable challenge for OLSR, especially for military applications. In this paper, we first highlight potential attacks, vulnerabilities, and key countermeasure points of OLSR in terms of security. Based on this analysis, we propose a new robust OLSR protocol for strict military environments. We demonstrate that the proposed protocol can defend against various sophisticated attacks and is manageable in terms of the tradeoff among security, trust, and performance.