Comparison of Energy-Efficient Key Management Protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks
A Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) contains small sensor nodes which monitor physical or environmental conditions. WSN is an important technology for digitalization of industrial periphery and is often used in environments which are not hardened against security impacts. These networks are easy to attack due to the open communication medium and low computing resources of the applied devices. Establishing security mechanisms is difficult while taking into account low energy consumption. Low cost sensors with limited resources make the implementation of cryptographic algorithms even more challenging. For WSNs cryptographic functions are needed without high impact on energy consumption and latency. Therefore, security in WSNs is a challenging field of research. This paper compares lightweight energy-efficient key exchange protocols which are suitable for WSN. The protocols were also implemented in WSN-capable Texas Instrument boards and the energy consumption was measured during the key exchange. This paper shows that schemes have to be chosen depending on the specific network requirements and that the usage of asymmetric cryptography does not always result in a high energy consumption.
This is a preprint version of the article.
Keywords: wireless sensor networks, key management, energy consumption
Year: 2019
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