Energy efficient filtering nodes assignment method for sensor networks using fuzzy logic

Abstract

Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) can enable context-aware services through sensing, processing, and reporting event information. Due to limited resources WSNs are vulnerable to various malicious attacks. In one of these attacks false event reports are generated to compromise the integrity of the sensor data. In most filtering schemes every sensor node on a path from an event source to a sink node operates as a filtering node which verifies received reports and determine whether they are valid or false. Hence, even the valid reports are verified multiple times as they are forwarded toward the sink node, causing unnecessary energy consumption. In this paper we propose a filtering nodes assignment method to reduce the energy consumption while verifying the event reports. The proposed method partitions the network into several areas and assigns filtering nodes for each area according to a fuzzy output value derived from the three inputs - the number of valid event reports received from the area, the elapsed time since the last valid event report received from the area, and the average hop count from the nodes in the area to the sink node. The experimental results show that the proposed method conserves sensor nodes' energy and increases the network lifetime with similar security level. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.