A Mechanism Design-Based Multi-Leader Election Scheme for Intrusion Detection in MANET

In this paper, we study the election of multiple leaders for intrusion detection in the presence of selfish nodes in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). To balance the resource consumption and prolong the lifetime of all nodes, each cluster should elect a node with the most remaining resources as its leader. However, without incentives for serving others, a node may behave selfishly by lying about its remaining resource and avoiding being elected. We present a solution based on mechanism design theory. More specifically, we design a scheme for electing cluster leaders that have the following two advantages: First, the collection of elected leaders is the optimal in the sense that the overall resource consumption will be balanced among all nodes in the network overtime. Second, the scheme provides the leaders with incentives in the form of reputation so that nodes are encouraged to honestly participate in the election process. The design of such incentives is based on the Vickrey, Clarke, and Groves (VCG) model by which truth-telling is the dominant strategy for each node. Simulation results show that our scheme can effectively prolong the overall lifetime of IDS in MANET and balance the resource consumptions among all the nodes.