A distributed routing architecture for secure communication over highly dynamic radio networks

Highly dynamic ad hoc radio networks are the key technology for future military and crisis management operations but also raise additional challenges for secure communication between networks with higher security levels attached to mobile nodes. We propose an efficient solution to the currently not satisfactorily handled task of providing a mapping between node identifiers in the radio network and reachable addresses in the attached secure networks while separating security domains and supporting the nodes´ ability to leave and join different radio networks, for example IP-based ad hoc or non-IP radio links. The approach is based on the concept of a distributed network element which encapsulates the radio network and hides its dynamic behaviour behind a single virtual network entity, e.g. a router which implements routing protocols of the adjacent networks; by means of suitably secured internal communication this entity is on the same security level as the attached networks. While existing approaches mostly focus on more static environments or do not take different security levels into account, our proposed solution deals efficiently with highly dynamic radio node behaviour to flexibly build secure communication channels over the underlying radio transport network. We apply the generic concept in a case study to a concrete realisation based on an IP-based MANET as transport network for attached IP domains.