A Grid-based Approach to Location-Dependent Key Management in Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

To achieve secure communications in wireless sensor networks, sensor nodes should be able to establish
secret shared keys with neighboring parties. The location information of sensor nodes can be
used to generate a shared key. In this paper, we propose yet another location-based key management
scheme for wireless sensor networks. After reviewing the existing location-based key management
schemes, we focus on the scheme called LDK because of its pros and cons. To solve a communication
interference problem in LDK and its similar methods, we devise the new key revision process
that incorporates the grid-based location information. We also propose the key establishment process
using the grid information. For analysis, we conducted a simulation and confirmed that our method
can increase the connectivity while decrease the compromise ratio when the minimum number of
common keys required for key establishment is high. Finally, we also found that hexagonal deployment
of anchor nodes can save network costs in our method.