A Power-efficient Secure Routing Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is a hot research area due to its use in many military and civilian applications. WSN consists of distributed small, low power and limited capabilities sensors that are scattered in the network field to sense different parameters in the environment. The sensed data will be sent to a more powerful node called sink node (Base Station). The sink node is usually connected to a power supply and is used to process the data and to connect the sensor network to other networks like the Internet. One of the major challenges in such networks is how to provide connection between the sensors and the sink node and how to exchange the data while maintaining the security requirements and taking into consideration their limited resources in terms of energy, memory and available bandwidth. In this paper a power-efficient, secure routing protocol is proposed to help managing the resources in WSN networks. The proposed protocol is a hybrid of two major categories of protocols in WSNs, namely tree-based and cluster-based protocols. The proposed protocol is combined with a Fuzzy Logic inference system to aid in the selection of the best route based on a combination of three factors: the path length, the available power and the node reputation resulted from the Intrusion Detection System (IDS). The proposed protocol uses three Fuzzy Inference Systems (FIS) that are implemented in two tiers. Tier one will choose the best route in terms of shortest length and high power. Tier two provides a security assessment for the selected route. Key-Words: Wireless Sensor Network (WSN), Security; Routing, Power Saving, Clustering, Intrusion Detection System (IDS), Fuzzy Logic