Reliability of Authenticated Key Establishment Protocols in a Complex Sensor System

Griffith Sciences, School of Information and Communication TechnologyFull Tex

Quality-of-service in wireless sensor networks: state-of-the-art and future directions

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are one of today’s most prominent instantiations of the ubiquituous computing paradigm. In order to achieve high levels of integration, WSNs need to be conceived considering requirements beyond the mere system’s functionality. While Quality-of-Service (QoS) is traditionally associated with bit/data rate, network throughput, message delay and bit/packet error rate, we believe that this concept is too strict, in the sense that these properties alone do not reflect the overall quality-ofservice provided to the user/application. Other non-functional properties such as scalability, security or energy sustainability must also be considered in the system design. This paper identifies the most important non-functional properties that affect the overall quality of the service provided to the users, outlining their relevance, state-of-the-art and future research directions

Information Assurance Protocols for Body Sensors Using Physiological Data

Griffith Sciences, School of Information and Communication TechnologyFull Tex

Location based services in wireless ad hoc networks

In this dissertation, we investigate location based services in wireless ad hoc networks from four different aspects - i) location privacy in wireless sensor networks (privacy), ii) end-to-end secure communication in randomly deployed wireless sensor networks (security), iii) quality versus latency trade-off in content retrieval under ad hoc node mobility (performance) and iv) location clustering based Sybil attack detection in vehicular ad hoc networks (trust). The first contribution of this dissertation is in addressing location privacy in wireless sensor networks. We propose a non-cooperative sensor localization algorithm showing how an external entity can stealthily invade into the location privacy of sensors in a network. We then design a location privacy preserving tracking algorithm for defending against such adversarial localization attacks. Next we investigate secure end-to-end communication in randomly deployed wireless sensor networks. Here, due to lack of control on sensors\u27 locations post deployment, pre-fixing pairwise keys between sensors is not feasible especially under larger scale random deployments. Towards this premise, we propose differentiated key pre-distribution for secure end-to-end secure communication, and show how it improves existing routing algorithms. Our next contribution is in addressing quality versus latency trade-off in content retrieval under ad hoc node mobility. We propose a two-tiered architecture for efficient content retrieval in such environment. Finally we investigate Sybil attack detection in vehicular ad hoc networks. A Sybil attacker can create and use multiple counterfeit identities risking trust of a vehicular ad hoc network, and then easily escape the location of the attack avoiding detection. We propose a location based clustering of nodes leveraging vehicle platoon dispersion for detection of Sybil attacks in vehicular ad hoc networks --Abstract, page iii

A Survey on Privacy Preserving Data Aggregation Protocols forWireless Sensor Networks

The data aggregation is a widely used mechanism in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) to increase lifetime of a sensor node, send robust information by avoiding redundant data transmission to the base station. The privacy preserving data aggregation is a challenge in wireless communication medium as it could be eavesdropped; however it enhances the security without compromising energy efficiency. Thus the privacy protecting data aggregation protocols aims to prevent the disclosure of individual data though an adversary intercept a link or compromise a node’s data. We present a study of different privacy preserving data aggregation techniques used in WSNs to enhance energy and security based on the types of nodes in the network, topology and encryptions used for data aggregation.</p

DESIGN OF MOBILE DATA COLLECTOR BASED CLUSTERING ROUTING PROTOCOL FOR WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) consisting of hundreds or even thousands of nodes, canbe used for a multitude of applications such as warfare intelligence or to monitor the environment. A typical WSN node has a limited and usually an irreplaceable power source and the efficient use of the available power is of utmost importance to ensure maximum lifetime of eachWSNapplication. Each of the nodes needs to transmit and communicate sensed data to an aggregation point for use by higher layer systems. Data and message transmission among nodes collectively consume the largest amount of energy available in WSNs. The network routing protocols ensure that every message reaches thedestination and has a direct impact on the amount of transmissions to deliver messages successfully. To this end, the transmission protocol within the WSNs should be scalable, adaptable and optimized to consume the least possible amount of energy to suite different network architectures and application domains. The inclusion of mobile nodes in the WSNs deployment proves to be detrimental to protocol performance in terms of nodes energy efficiency and reliable message delivery. This thesis which proposes a novel Mobile Data Collector based clustering routing protocol for WSNs is designed that combines cluster based hierarchical architecture and utilizes three-tier multi-hop routing strategy between cluster heads to base station by the help of Mobile Data Collector (MDC) for inter-cluster communication. In addition, a Mobile Data Collector based routing protocol is compared with Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy and A Novel Application Specific Network Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks routing protocol. The protocol is designed with the following in mind: minimize the energy consumption of sensor nodes, resolve communication holes issues, maintain data reliability, finally reach tradeoff between energy efficiency and latency in terms of End-to-End, and channel access delays. Simulation results have shown that the Mobile Data Collector based clustering routing protocol for WSNs could be easily implemented in environmental applications where energy efficiency of sensor nodes, network lifetime and data reliability are major concerns

QoS Provision for Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor network is a fast growing area of research, receiving attention not only within the computer science and electrical engineering communities, but also in relation to network optimization, scheduling, risk and reliability analysis within industrial and system engineering. The availability of micro-sensors and low-power wireless communications will enable the deployment of densely distributed sensor/actuator networks. And an integration of such system plays critical roles in many facets of human life ranging from intelligent assistants in hospitals to manufacturing process, to rescue agents in large scale disaster response, to sensor networks tracking environment phenomena, and others. The sensor nodes will perform significant signal processing, computation, and network self-configuration to achieve scalable, secure, robust and long-lived networks. More specifically, sensor nodes will do local processing to reduce energy costs, and key exchanges to ensure robust communications. These requirements pose interesting challenges for networking research. The most important technical challenge arises from the development of an integrated system which is 1)energy efficient because the system must be long-lived and operate without manual intervention, 2)reliable for data communication and robust to attackers because information security and system robustness are important in sensitive applications, such as military. Based on the above challenges, this dissertation provides Quality of Service (QoS) implementation and evaluation for the wireless sensor networks. It includes the following 3 modules, 1) energy-efficient routing, 2) energy-efficient coverage, 3). communication security. Energy-efficient routing combines the features of minimum energy consumption routing protocols with minimum computational cost routing protocols. Energy-efficient coverage provides on-demand sensing and measurement. Information security needs a security key exchange scheme to ensure reliable and robust communication links. QoS evaluation metrics and results are presented based on the above requirements

Wireless multimedia sensor network technology: a survey

Wireless Multimedia Sensor Networks (WMSNs) is comprised of small embedded video motes capable of extracting the surrounding environmental information, locally processing it and then wirelessly transmitting it to parent node or sink. It is comprised of video sensor, digital signal processing unit and digital radio interface. In this paper we have surveyed existing WMSN hardware and communicationprotocol layer technologies for achieving or fulfilling the objectives of WMSN. We have also listed the various technical challenges posed by this technology while discussing the communication protocol layer technologies. Sensor networking capabilities are urgently required for some of our most important scientific and societal problems like understanding the international carbon budget, monitoring water resources, monitoring vehicle emissions and safeguarding public health. This is a daunting research challenge requiring distributed sensor systems operating in complex environments while providing assurance of reliable and accurate sensing