Malicious node detection via physical layer data

There are many mechanisms that can cause inadequate or unreliable information in sensor networks. A user of the network might be interested in detecting and classifying specific sensors nodes causing these problems. There are many network layer based trust mechanisms in the literature to assess these issues; in contrast this work develops physical layer based trust metrics to detect non-functioning nodes. The context will be “wireless network discovery,” which refers to modeling all layers of a non-cooperative wireless network. In particular, the localization of transmitters and the detection of sensors affecting the localization. A model for non-functioning sensors and two methods of detection are developed. The methods of detection are analyzed with Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curves, and the sensor node trade-off of detection versus localization error is discussed.