Intelligent Authentication Model in a Hierarchical Wireless Sensor Network With Multiple Sinks

Introduction

A wireless sensor network consists of a field of sensors, a sink which moves in the field to collect data from the sensors and sends the consolidated data from the sensors to a base station. The base station can then process the data further according to the application. There may be multiple sinks deployed in the field. The sensors in the field are grouped in clusters with a cluster head (Akyildiz &Vuran, 2010). In a given area of interest, sensors belonging to different fields may be deployed. When a sink visits a sensor, it has to identify the ownership of the sensor and confirm that it belongs to the same field as the sink. The sensor also has to make sure that the sink that requests for data belongs to the same field. The exchange of data is initiated only when the confirmation of identities is positive for both the sensor and the sink. Once this authentication step is positively confirmed, sensor data is encrypted and transferred by the sink to the base station. If the confirmation is negative, the sink is not allowed to access the sensor data. During the transfer, sensor data placed in the sink should be protected from modification, either deliberately by an attacker or due to external environment factors. This requires an algorithm to ensure data integrity. This article experiments the various approaches that can be used to perform the authentication of sensors and sinks before any confidential data is transferred between them.