How mobile nodes influence wireless sensor networks security and lifetime

Abstract

To maintain the proper functioning of critical applications based on Wireless Sensor Networks, we must provide an acceptable level of security while taking into account limited capabilities of the sensors. In this paper we propose a mobile approach to secure data exchanged by structured nodes in cluster. The approach is based on mobile nodes with significant calculation and energy resources that allow cryptographic key management and periodic rekeying. However, mobility in wireless sensor networks aims to increase the security and lifetime of the entire network. The technical methods used in this paper are based on cryptography elliptic curves and key management through a balanced binary tree. To compare the performance of the proposed approach with other mobile algorithms, we focus on the following metrics: the energy consumed by normal sensors and cluster heads, the number of packets exchanged during key installation, time to generate and distribute cryptographic keys and the memory used by the different sensors to store keys.