802 research outputs found
Droplet: A New Denial-of-Service Attack on Low Power Wireless Sensor Networks
In this paper we present a new kind of Denial-of-Service attack against the PHY layer of low power wireless sensor networks. Overcoming the very limited range of jamming-based attacks, this attack can penetrate deep into a target network with high power efficiency. We term this the Droplet attack, as it attains enormous disruption by dropping small, payload-less frame headers to its victim's radio receiver, depriving the latter of bandwidth and sleep time. We demonstrate the Droplet attack's high damage rate to full duty-cycle receivers, and further show that a high frequency version of Droplet can even force nodes running on very low duty-cycle MAC protocols to drop most of their packets
Power saving MAC protocols in wireless sensor networks: a survey
In a wireless sensor network, energy is almost always the greatest limitation. Energy sources are restricted in many of the environments where nodes are deployed, limiting them to the use of batteries for power. Therefore, conserving energy is supremely important, however, such a task poses many challenges to hardware and protocol design. One of the greatest problems faced is reducing the energy consumption of the communications systems, which represents a substantial amount of the total consumption. This paper surveys the most recent schemes designed to reduce the communications module energy consumption with a focus on novel MAC protocols for ad-hoc wireless sensor networks. It initially describes the many challenges involved, then it analyses each protocol individually. Finally, the presented protocols are compared and the issues that remain open are raised for further research
Power saving MAC protocols in wireless sensor networks: a survey
In a wireless sensor network, energy is almost always the greatest limitation. Energy sources are restricted in many of the environments where nodes are deployed, limiting them to the use of batteries for power. Therefore, conserving energy is supremely important, however, such a task poses many challenges to hardware and protocol design. One of the greatest problems faced is reducing the energy consumption of the communications systems, which represents a substantial amount of the total consumption. This paper surveys the most recent schemes designed to reduce the communications module energy consumption with a focus on novel MAC protocols for ad-hoc wireless sensor networks. It initially describes the many challenges involved, then it analyses each protocol individually. Finally, the presented protocols are compared and the issues that remain open are raised for further research.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
A Survey on Wireless Security: Technical Challenges, Recent Advances and Future Trends
This paper examines the security vulnerabilities and threats imposed by the
inherent open nature of wireless communications and to devise efficient defense
mechanisms for improving the wireless network security. We first summarize the
security requirements of wireless networks, including their authenticity,
confidentiality, integrity and availability issues. Next, a comprehensive
overview of security attacks encountered in wireless networks is presented in
view of the network protocol architecture, where the potential security threats
are discussed at each protocol layer. We also provide a survey of the existing
security protocols and algorithms that are adopted in the existing wireless
network standards, such as the Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, WiMAX, and the long-term
evolution (LTE) systems. Then, we discuss the state-of-the-art in
physical-layer security, which is an emerging technique of securing the open
communications environment against eavesdropping attacks at the physical layer.
We also introduce the family of various jamming attacks and their
counter-measures, including the constant jammer, intermittent jammer, reactive
jammer, adaptive jammer and intelligent jammer. Additionally, we discuss the
integration of physical-layer security into existing authentication and
cryptography mechanisms for further securing wireless networks. Finally, some
technical challenges which remain unresolved at the time of writing are
summarized and the future trends in wireless security are discussed.Comment: 36 pages. Accepted to Appear in Proceedings of the IEEE, 201
An Analytical Model of Packet Collisions in IEEE 802.15.4 Wireless Networks
Numerous studies showed that concurrent transmissions can boost wireless
network performance despite collisions. While these works provide empirical
evidence that concurrent transmissions may be received reliably, existing
signal capture models only partially explain the root causes of this
phenomenon. We present a comprehensive mathematical model that reveals the
reasons and provides insights on the key parameters affecting the performance
of MSK-modulated transmissions. A major contribution is a closed-form
derivation of the receiver bit decision variable for arbitrary numbers of
colliding signals and constellations of power ratios, timing offsets, and
carrier phase offsets. We systematically explore the root causes for successful
packet delivery under concurrent transmissions across the whole parameter space
of the model. We confirm the capture threshold behavior observed in previous
studies but also reveal new insights relevant for the design of optimal
protocols: We identify capture zones depending not only on the signal power
ratio but also on time and phase offsets.Comment: Accepted for publication in the IEEE Transactions on Wireless
Communications under the title "On the Reception of Concurrent Transmissions
in Wireless Sensor Networks.
Highly reliable, low-latency communication in low-power wireless networks
Low-power wireless networks consist of spatially distributed, resource-constrained devices – also referred to as nodes – that are typically equipped with integrated or external sensors and actuators. Nodes communicate with each other using wireless transceivers, and thus, relay data – e. g., collected sensor values or commands for actuators – cooperatively through the network. This way, low-power wireless networks can support a plethora of different applications, including, e. g., monitoring the air quality in urban areas or controlling the heating, ventilation and cooling of large buildings. The use of wireless communication in such monitoring and actuating applications allows for a higher flexibility and ease of deployment – and thus, overall lower costs – compared to wired solutions. However, wireless communication is notoriously error-prone. Message losses happen often and unpredictably, making it challenging to support applications requiring both high reliability and low latency. Highly reliable, low-latency communication – along with high energy-efficiency – are, however, key requirements to support several important application scenarios and most notably the open-/closed-loop control functions found in e. g., industry and factory automation applications.
Communication protocols that rely on synchronous transmissions have been shown to be able to overcome this limitation. These protocols depart from traditional single-link transmissions and do not attempt to avoid concurrent transmissions from different nodes to prevent collisions. On the contrary, they make nodes send the same message at the same time over several paths. Phenomena like constructive interference and capture then ensure that messages are received correctly with high probability.
While many approaches relying on synchronous transmissions have been presented in the literature, two important aspects received only little consideration: (i) reliable operation in harsh environments and (ii) support for event-based data traffic. This thesis addresses these two open challenges and proposes novel communication protocols to overcome them
Whisper: Fast Flooding for Low-Power Wireless Networks
This paper presents Whisper, a fast and reliable protocol to flood small
amounts of data into a multi-hop network. Whisper relies on three main
cornerstones. First, it embeds the message to be flooded into a signaling
packet that is composed of multiple packlets. A packlet is a portion of the
message payload that mimics the structure of an actual packet. A node must
intercept only one of the packlets to know that there is an ongoing
transmission. Second, Whisper exploits the structure of the signaling packet to
reduce idle listening and, thus, to reduce the radio-on time of the nodes.
Third, it relies on synchronous transmissions to quickly flood the signaling
packet through the network. Our evaluation on the Flocklab testbed shows that
Whisper achieves comparable reliability but significantly lower radio-on time
than Glossy -- a state-of-the-art flooding algorithm. Specifically, Whisper can
disseminate data in FlockLab twice as fast as Glossy with no loss in
reliability. Further, Whisper spends 30% less time in channel sampling compared
to Glossy when no data traffic must be disseminated
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