An Energy-Efficient Dynamic Key Management Scheme in Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

In this paper, we present an energy-efficient dynamic key management scheme in which new sensor nodes can join a sensor network securely and compromised nodes can be isolated from the network in time. Unlike in centralized and location-based key management schemes, our scheme doesn't depend on such infrastructure as base stations and robots, thus it possesses a high level of flexibility. By using a pseudo-random function and the elliptic curve digital signature algorithm in our scheme, energy consumption can be reduced significantly in key establishment and maintenance phases. Analysis shows that our scheme has a very low overhead in terms of computation, communication, and storage.