LSDAR: A light-weight structure based data aggregation routing protocol with secure internet of things integrated next-generation sensor networks

Abstract

Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) gains a lot of research devotion because of their unique features as compared to traditional networks. The resource constraints next-generation sensors are interconnected in billions for the foundation of the large-sized Internet of Things (IoT). Due to the large-sized deployment of IoT devices and their dynamic conditions, existing security mechanisms do not meet the requirements of protection against malicious adversaries. Moreover, because of the unreliable and open-access Internet medium, traditional routing protocols are vulnerable to a variety of malicious threats and compromised to data security. Thus, the aim of this research article is to present a novel light-weight structure based Data Aggregation Routing (LSDAR) protocol for IoT integrated Next-generation Sensor Networks for the improvement of energy routing performance with node level data protection against malicious threats. Firstly, the network nodes are decomposed into independent clusters based on varying radiuses and preventing energy holes around the locality of the base station (BS). Secondly, based on the A-star heuristics algorithm, efficient and loop-free routing paths are constructed. Furthermore, the end-to end communication links are protected against malicious nodes by using mathematically unbreakable one time pad (OTP) encryption scheme to provide data security. The simulation results indicate significant improvements with the comparison of the state-of-the-art in terms of energy consumption, network lifetime, an end to end delay and packet drop ratio.