Secure Coverage Tree Construction Scheme for Wireless Sensor Networks

In wireless sensor networks, nodes usually construct tree structure in any monitored area to enable data aggregation and to transmit aggregated data by multi-hopping through neighbors to a remote sink (BS) which results in significant energy savings. Further- more, a captured sensor node might generate a fictitious data and misguide the Sink (BS). Hence, secure communication between nodes have generally vital importance. Secret shared keys are needed to be established among sensor nodes for secure communication among them. In the present work a new algorithm is introduced to construct such a tree of sensor nodes in wireless sensor networks. This algorithm implements a sleep/wake scheduling technique to keep redundant nodes inactive while maintaining initial sensing coverage with active nodes. Redundant nodes can replace the failure nodes to keep network tasks that enhances the network lifetime by efficient utilization. Hence the objective of this research work is to jointly design the scheme for sensor scheduling, tree construction with active nodes, and secret pair-wise keys establishment with their parent and children such that the network lifetime can be maximized. Thereafter, sensor nodes communicate with each other securely using secret pair-wise keys.