A Robot–Sensor Network Security Architecture for Monitoring Applications

Abstract

This article presents <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Sensor Network Security using Robots</i> (SNSR), a novel, open, and flexible architecture that improves security in static sensor networks by benefiting from robot–sensor network cooperation. In SNSR, the robot performs sensor node authentication and radio-based localization (enabling centralized topology computation and route establishment) and directly interacts with nodes to send them configurations or receive status and anomaly reports without intermediaries. SNSR operation is divided into stages set in a feedback iterative structure, which enables repeating the execution of stages to adapt to changes, respond to attacks, or detect and correct errors. By exploiting the robot capabilities, SNSR provides high security levels and adaptability without requiring complex mechanisms. This article presents SNSR, analyzes its security against common attacks, and experimentally validates its performance.