EAGER: Evaluating the feasibility of Self-Protecting Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks

Georgia State University Research Foundation, Inc., Atlanta GA

Investigators

Abstract

For the use of unattended wireless sensor networks (WSNs) in critical situations to be viable, they must be able to operate in hostile environments for extended periods of time. Therefore, protocols for WSNs must be energy-efficient. In addition to the need for energy-efficiency, a WSN deployed in a hostile region should be resilient to attack. The current approach to defending against malicious threats is to develop and deploy a specific defense mechanism for a specific attack. However, this unrealistically assumes that only the attack that the sensor is prepared for will be executed. To truly realize mission critical sensor networks, the WSN must have the capability to defend against all known attacks as well as mechanisms for defending against future attacks (i.e., the WSN must be self-protecting). This proposal addresses the challenges with and feasibility of implementing large-scale self-protecting WSNs. In particular, this proposal seeks to determine if: 1) there are fundamental limitations of current sensor system architectures that prevent the realization of a self-protecting WSN; 2) the current network protocols and database techniques can provide the constraints-based routing and real-time storage / retrieval required for self-protecting WSNs; and 3) the proposed architecture of the self-protecting WSN is itself susceptible to attack. Where necessary, algorithms and architectures to overcome the potential limitations of current architectures and protocols are also developed in the project.