The Design and Implement of a Simulation Model of Authentication Protocol of Ad Hoc

A mobile ad hoc network is an up-to-date one emerging with the development of wireless communication technology. Nowadays, it has become more and more popular. Along with the development, more and more authentication protocols in ad hoc network have been proposed. But the problem is that how to validate the security and efficiency of these proposed protocols. In this paper, we proposed a general model for modeling and simulation of the authentication protocols at application layer in mobile ad hoc network based on OPNET simulation environment to test performance of the authentication protocols. A prototype is implemented taking an authentication protocol based on self-certified public key as an example. According to the analyses of the simulation results, the authentication protocol satisfies the request of mobility factor of the MANET nodes and the effect to the end-to-end delay is limited. Quantitative references are provided for the study of authentication protocols for the mobile ad hoc network.