Novel Approach of Key Predistribution for Grid Based Sensor Networks

Abstract

Grid based sensor networks are significant for applications such as monitoring goods in a warehouse, studying traffic level of city streets, monitoring energy consumptions through smart meters deployed in a colony of houses. We propose a novel Key Predistribution Scheme (KPS) for networks where objects being monitored form a square grid. The confidentiality and integrity of the data being communicated in grid based sensor networks are critical since, compromise to the same could reveal the personal traits of the consumer and any alteration of data could yield erroneous results. On the other hand, since the deployment of such a network is on the nodes that are typically resource constrained, devising the security protocols for such networks is challenging. Our focus in this work is on designing a KPS that requires less storage in terms of number of keys and providing same level of resilience as other existing KPSs. The proposed KPS requires only 3 keys per node for providing the same level of resilience as a pairwise KPS (considered to provide maximum resilience) that requires $$O(N-1)$$ keys (N is the total number of nodes). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt at considering linearity for designing a lightweight KPS and proposing a scheme that requires O(1) keys per node, and yet offering maximum resilience in grid based sensor networks.