Wireless sensor networks are characterised by the distributed nature of their operation and the resource constraints on the nodes. Trust management schemes that are targeted at sensor networks need to be lightweight in terms of computational and communication requirements, yet powerful in terms of flexibility in managing trust between nodes of heterogeneous deployments. In this paper, we propose a trust management model that can uniformly support the needs of nodes with highly diverse network roles and capabilities, by exploiting the predeployment knowledge on the network topology and the information flows, and by allowing for flexibility in the trust establishment process. The model is hybrid, combining aspects from certificate-based and behaviour-based approaches on trust establishment on common evaluation processes and metrics. It enables controlled trust evolution based on network pre-configuration, and controlled trust revocation through the propagation of behaviour evaluation results made available by supervision networks. The proposed model and trust metrics have been validated through simulation. The results and analysis demonstrate its effectiveness in managing the trust relationships between nodes and clusters, while distributing the computational cost of trust evaluation operations.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations鈥揷itations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.