Modeling and analysis of trust management with trust chain optimization in mobile ad hoc networks

We develop and analyze a trust management protocol for mission-driven group communication systems in mobile ad hoc networks using hierarchical modeling techniques based on stochastic Petri nets. Trust among mobile nodes is crucial for team collaborations with new coalition partners without prior interactions for mission-driven group communication systems in battlefield situations. In addition, ensuring a certain level of trust is also critical for successful mission completion. Our work seeks to identify the optimal length of a trust chain among peers in a trust web that generates the most accurate trust levels without revealing risk based on a tradeoff between trust availability and path reliability over trust space. We define a trust metric for mission-driven group communication systems in mobile ad hoc networks to properly reflect unique characteristics of trust concepts and demonstrate that an optimal trust chain length exists for generating the most accurate trust levels for trust-based collaboration among peers in mobile ad hoc networks while meeting trust availability and path reliability requirements.