A Complete Set of Protocols for Distributed Key Management in Clustered Wireless Sensor Networks

In wireless sensor networks, security has to be mainly provided to two types of communications: one-to-all and one-to-one. This paper proposes a complete set of low complexity protocols to generate and distribute two types of secret keys. The protocols are designed for a clustered hierarchical network. These protocols include the initial key management, the periodic key management and the key management upon cluster dynamics. All the communications in the protocols are properly authenticated using elliptic curve digital signature scheme. The protocols are implemented for TinyOS using NesC, simulated under TOSSIM and are viable for implementation in resource-constrained platforms like MICA.