Ability-aware trust for vehicular networks

Abstract

Future vehicles will exchange much information through a wireless network in order to efficiently maintain their inner model of the environment. Before they can believe received pieces of information, they must evaluate their reliability. Trust is a mechanism to estimate this reliability based on the sender. It depends on friendship-like relations between vehicles, the social structure. Our traffic and network simulation shows that such relations indeed arise, because vehicles often drive the same route. Within this simulation, all vehicles are equipped with the proposed trust model, which continuously monitors the experiences made with others. The model focuses on these direct experiences of the individual and does not depend on a central reputation unit. It continuously evaluates the performance and reputation of other vehicles and includes a feedback loop to faster adapt to changes in the other’s behaviour. Since the performance of a vehicle depends on the abilities of its sensors, like different abilities in velocity measurement or in traffic sign detection, the proposed model develops trust depending on the sender and on the type of the information.