An Efficient Key Management Scheme for Heterogeneous Sensor Networks

Abstract

The establishment of keys between communicating neighbor nodes in homogeneous sensor networks is a challenge due to resource constrained sensor networks. However, recent researches have indicated that the performance of the sensor networks can be substantially improved with a small percentage of more capable sensors. To achieve better performance and security, we adopt a heterogeneous sensor network model. In this paper, we propose an efficient key management scheme based on public-key cryptography to establish distinct symmetry-keys between communicating neighbor nodes. Compared with existing key pre-distribution schemes, the proposed scheme has better resilience against node capture and performs better in terms of memory and computation overheads.