Providing security and energy efficiency in wireless ad-hoc sensor networks through Secure Cluster-Head Election (SEC-CH-E)

Data sensed and transferred between sensor nodes should be secure and preserve battery life. Some algorithms, such as LEACH (Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy), have been proposed to efficiently organize sensor nodes into clusters, where a cluster-head, is elected to represent that cluster. To save energy, the cluster-head coordinates the cluster and forwards data generated within the cluster. Despite preserving energy, in practice LEACH lacks security features. A Secure Cluster Head Election algorithm (SEC-CH-E) that improves the original LEACH algorithm by adding security features as well as bringing increasing energy savings is proposed. The algorithm takes into account wireless sensor networks constraints such as the limited radio range and power limitations when electing secure cluster-head nodes, which are factors unaccounted for in LEACH. It is shown that these factors have profound energy implications. The superiority of Sec-CH-E performance is assessed by looking at the energy remaining in the network and the fraction of dead nodes.