A Mean Field Game Theoretic Approach for Security Enhancements in Mobile Ad-hoc Networks

In this thesis, we propose the mean field game theory for security in MANETs, which can provide a powerful mathematical tool for problems with a large number of players. To the best of our knowledge, using mean field game theoretic approach for security in MANETs has not been considered in the existing works. The proposed scheme can enable an individual node in MANETs to make strategic security defence decisions without centralized administration. In addition, since security defence mechanisms consume precious system resources (e.g., energy), the proposed scheme considers not only the security requirement of MANETs but also the system resources. Moreover, each node in the proposed scheme only needs to know its own state information and the aggregate effect of the other nodes in MANETs. Therefore, the proposed scheme is a fully distributed scheme. Simulation results are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.