A Scheme for Detecting Selfish Nodes in MANETs Using OMNET++

In a mobile ad hoc network (MANET), each node has to rely on others to relay its packets. Since most mobile nodes are typically constrained by power and computing resources, some nodes may choose not to be cooperative by refusing to do so while still using the network to forward their packets. Most previous works focus on data forwarding. However, dropping control packets is a better strategy for the selfish nodes to avoid themselves from being asked to forward data packets and hence could conserve resources for their own use. In this paper, we present a new mechanism to detect those selfish nodes. Each node is expected to contribute to the network on the continual basis within a time frame. Those which fail will undergo a test for their suspicious behaviour. Simulation results shows that our scheme could be used to detect selfish nodes in a network.