Reasoning services for security and energy management in wireless sensor networks

In this paper we propose a management scheme based on automated reasoning for wireless sensor networks. Our scheme ensures reliable zone surveillance with reduced energy consumption, a crucial constraint in sensors networks and in tomorrow´s green communication platforms. We divide the zone to monitor into a set of areas each containing a management node that implements reasoning services. The management node centralizes alerts issued by sensors in the area, correlates them, and raises an alarm to the administrator only if a real event occurs. Moreover, each sensor runs a set of reasoning functions that limit its communication with the management node of its area. Through simulations we show that our scheme reduces considerably the number of messages sent from sensor to management nodes as well as alarms raised by the management nodes to the administrator without missing events in the monitored zone. Hence our management ensures reliable surveillance and extends the sensor network lifetime in the same time.