A critical analysis of research potential, challenges and future directives in industrial wireless sensor networks

In recent years, Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks (IWSNs) have emerged as an important research theme with applications spanning a wide range of industries including automation, monitoring, process control, feedback systems and automotive. Wide scope of IWSNs applications ranging from small production units, large oil and gas industries to nuclear fission control, enables a fast-paced research in this field. Though IWSNs offer advantages of low cost, flexibility, scalability, self-healing, easy deployment and reformation, yet they pose certain limitations on available potential and introduce challenges on multiple fronts due to their susceptibility to highly complex and uncertain industrial environments. In this paper a detailed discussion on design objectives, challenges and solutions, for IWSNs, are presented. A careful evaluation of industrial systems, deadlines and possible hazards in industrial atmosphere are discussed. The paper also presents a thorough review of the existing standards and industrial protocols and gives a critical evaluation of potential of these standards and protocols along with a detailed discussion on available hardware platforms, specific industrial energy harvesting techniques and their capabilities. The paper lists main service providers for IWSNs solutions and gives insight of future trends and research gaps in the field of IWSNs

Middleware for Wireless Sensor Networks: An Outlook

In modern distributed computing, applications are rarely built directly atop operating system facilities, e.g., sockets. Higher-level middleware abstractions and systems are often employed to simplify the programmer’s chore or to achieve interoperability. In contrast, real-world wireless sensor network (WSN) applications are almost always developed by relying directly on the operating system. Why is this the case? Does it make sense to include a middleware layer in the design of WSNs? And, if so, is it the same kind of software system as in traditional distributed computing? What are the fundamental concepts, reasonable assumptions, and key criteria guiding its design? What are the main open research challenges, and the potential pitfalls? Most importantly, is it worth pursuing research in this field? This paper provides a (biased) answer to these and other research questions, preceded by a brief account on the state of the art in the field

A Survey on Wireless Sensor Network Security

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have recently attracted a lot of interest in the research community due their wide range of applications. Due to distributed nature of these networks and their deployment in remote areas, these networks are vulnerable to numerous security threats that can adversely affect their proper functioning. This problem is more critical if the network is deployed for some mission-critical applications such as in a tactical battlefield. Random failure of nodes is also very likely in real-life deployment scenarios. Due to resource constraints in the sensor nodes, traditional security mechanisms with large overhead of computation and communication are infeasible in WSNs. Security in sensor networks is, therefore, a particularly challenging task. This paper discusses the current state of the art in security mechanisms for WSNs. Various types of attacks are discussed and their countermeasures presented. A brief discussion on the future direction of research in WSN security is also included.Comment: 24 pages, 4 figures, 2 table

Anomaly detection in smart city wireless sensor networks

Aquesta tesi proposa una plataforma de detecció d’intrusions per a revelar atacs a les xarxes de sensors sense fils (WSN, per les sigles en anglès) de les ciutats intel·ligents (smart cities). La plataforma està dissenyada tenint en compte les necessitats dels administradors de la ciutat intel·ligent, els quals necessiten accés a una arquitectura centralitzada que pugui gestionar alarmes de seguretat en un sistema altament heterogeni i distribuït. En aquesta tesi s’identifiquen els diversos passos necessaris des de la recollida de dades fins a l’execució de les tècniques de detecció d’intrusions i s’avalua que el procés sigui escalable i capaç de gestionar dades típiques de ciutats intel·ligents. A més, es comparen diversos algorismes de detecció d’anomalies i s’observa que els mètodes de vectors de suport d’una mateixa classe (one-class support vector machines) resulten la tècnica multivariant més adequada per a descobrir atacs tenint en compte les necessitats d’aquest context. Finalment, es proposa un esquema per a ajudar els administradors a identificar els tipus d’atacs rebuts a partir de les alarmes disparades.Esta tesis propone una plataforma de detección de intrusiones para revelar ataques en las redes de sensores inalámbricas (WSN, por las siglas en inglés) de las ciudades inteligentes (smart cities). La plataforma está diseñada teniendo en cuenta la necesidad de los administradores de la ciudad inteligente, los cuales necesitan acceso a una arquitectura centralizada que pueda gestionar alarmas de seguridad en un sistema altamente heterogéneo y distribuido. En esta tesis se identifican los varios pasos necesarios desde la recolección de datos hasta la ejecución de las técnicas de detección de intrusiones y se evalúa que el proceso sea escalable y capaz de gestionar datos típicos de ciudades inteligentes. Además, se comparan varios algoritmos de detección de anomalías y se observa que las máquinas de vectores de soporte de una misma clase (one-class support vector machines) resultan la técnica multivariante más adecuada para descubrir ataques teniendo en cuenta las necesidades de este contexto. Finalmente, se propone un esquema para ayudar a los administradores a identificar los tipos de ataques recibidos a partir de las alarmas disparadas.This thesis proposes an intrusion detection platform which reveals attacks in smart city wireless sensor networks (WSN). The platform is designed taking into account the needs of smart city administrators, who need access to a centralized architecture that can manage security alarms in a highly heterogeneous and distributed system. In this thesis, we identify the various necessary steps from gathering WSN data to running the detection techniques and we evaluate whether the procedure is scalable and capable of handling typical smart city data. Moreover, we compare several anomaly detection algorithms and we observe that one-class support vector machines constitute the most suitable multivariate technique to reveal attacks, taking into account the requirements in this context. Finally, we propose a classification schema to assist administrators in identifying the types of attacks compromising their networks

An Energy Aware and Secure MAC Protocol for Tackling Denial of Sleep Attacks in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks which form part of the core for the Internet of Things consist of resource constrained sensors that are usually powered by batteries. Therefore, careful energy awareness is essential when working with these devices. Indeed,the introduction of security techniques such as authentication and encryption, to ensure confidentiality and integrity of data, can place higher energy load on the sensors. However, the absence of security protection c ould give room for energy drain attacks such as denial of sleep attacks which have a higher negative impact on the life span ( of the sensors than the presence of security features. This thesis, therefore, focuses on tackling denial of sleep attacks from two perspectives A security perspective and an energy efficiency perspective. The security perspective involves evaluating and ranking a number of security based techniques to curbing denial of sleep attacks. The energy efficiency perspective, on the other hand, involves exploring duty cycling and simulating three Media Access Control ( protocols Sensor MAC, Timeout MAC andTunableMAC under different network sizes and measuring different parameters such as the Received Signal Strength RSSI) and Link Quality Indicator ( Transmit power, throughput and energy efficiency Duty cycling happens to be one of the major techniques for conserving energy in wireless sensor networks and this research aims to answer questions with regards to the effect of duty cycles on the energy efficiency as well as the throughput of three duty cycle protocols Sensor MAC ( Timeout MAC ( and TunableMAC in addition to creating a novel MAC protocol that is also more resilient to denial of sleep a ttacks than existing protocols. The main contributions to knowledge from this thesis are the developed framework used for evaluation of existing denial of sleep attack solutions and the algorithms which fuel the other contribution to knowledge a newly developed protocol tested on the Castalia Simulator on the OMNET++ platform. The new protocol has been compared with existing protocols and has been found to have significant improvement in energy efficiency and also better resilience to denial of sleep at tacks Part of this research has been published Two conference publications in IEEE Explore and one workshop paper