Secure and Efficient Routing in Fog-Enabled VANETs: A Clustering-Based Approach

Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs) play a crucial role in intelligent transportation systems (ITS) by enabling seamless vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication. However, VANETs face significant challenges related to security, routing efficiency, and dynamic load balancing. This paper proposes a novel approach integrating clustering-based routing, fog computing, and authentication mechanisms to enhance network performance. The article proposes a new method for node authentication and redistribution of loads in vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs). The proposed method is designed to do better for VANETs in all aspects related to secure node authentication and the efficient load assignment among fog nodes. The approach uses a polynomial-based node authentication protocol and balances the network load dynamically by evaluating two parameters: Network Availability Bandwidth (NAB) and request count. Simulation-based performance evaluation was carried out for comparisons with existing algorithms. Metrics of comparison included throughput, packet delivery ratio (PDR), and latency. The proposed method clearly shows all improvements over existing algorithms. Throughput increased by 8591.86 packets per second; PDR improved to 0.833; latency was cut down to 6.4951 seconds, which makes it a potential candidate for performance enhancement in VANETs.