IEEE 802.15.4 addresses low-rate wireless personal area networks, enables low power devices, and includes a number of security provisions and options (the security sublayer). Security competes with performance for the scarce resources of low power, low cost sensor devices. So, a proper design of efficient and secure applications requires to know the impact that IEEE 802.15.4 security services have on the protocol performance. In this paper we present the preliminary results of a research activity aimed at quantitatively evaluating such impact from different standpoints including memory consumption, network performance, and energy consumption. The evaluation exploits a free implementation of the IEEE 802.15.4 security sublayer

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Nowadays, wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are used in a wide range of application scenarios ranging from structural monitoring to health-care, from surveillance to industrial automation. Most of these applications require forms of secure communication. On the other hand, security has a cost in terms of reduced performance. In this paper we refer to the IEEE 802.15.4 standard and investigate the impact of the 802.15.4 security sub-layer on the WSN performance. Specifically, we analyze the impact that security mechanisms and options, as provided by the standard, have on the overall WSN performance, in terms of latency, goodput, and energy consumption. To this end, we develop an analytical model and a securityenabled simulator. We also use a real testbed, based on a complete open-source implementation of the standard, to validate simulation and analytical results, as well as to better understand the limits of the current WSN technology.

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