Lightweight, distributed access control for wireless sensor networks supporting mobility

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) are large scale networks of unattended devices, aimed at monitoring environmental parameters. Their extremely scarce hardware resources constitute a huge limitation to the use of standard security protocols to secure communications, so that custom ones must be designed. In this article we describe the development of a novel access control system for WSN based on a distributed threshold scheme. Our model gives support for mobility and limits the needed communication and consequent energy drain, which is a fundamental parameter for the lifetime of WSN. ©2008 IEEE.