Cross-layered design of security scheme for cooperative MIMO sensor networks

Abstract

IntroductionMultiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) systems employ multiple antennas to provide extremely high spectral efficiencies through space multiplexing and link reliability through space diversity for wireless communication. Since it is unrealistic to equip multiple antennas to small and inexpensive nodes, virtual/cooperative MIMO technology that enables distributed single-antenna systems cooperating on data transmission and reception as a multiple antenna array is a promising technique and has attracted many researchers. A virtual MIMO network can be formed by clustering a network of single-antenna nodes, where each cluster is called a virtual MIMO node and the single-antenna nodes in a cluster are called as primary nodes which cooperate on data transmission and reception [1][2][3][4].Li et al. [5] and Kim et al.[6] developed MIMO-aided security schemes in physical layer. Instead of encryption techniques, their approaches exploit signal randomization which, when combined with channel diversity, effectively randomizes the eavesdropper's signals but not the authorized receiver's signals antenna array redundancy and diversity for secure wireless transmission. In [7] the security is enhanced by adding artificial noise to the transmission process in physical layer with extra MIMO antennas. Their scheme assumes a key management system in a higher layer and the artificial noise are generated by the keys shared with neighboring nodes. All these schemes need extra MIMO antennas to achieve the data assurance, which largely reduces the advantage of MIMO technique.In this paper, we propose a cross-layer security scheme for virtual MIMO networks. The scheme combines cryptographic technique implemented in higher layers with data assurance analysis at the physical layer to provide better security. The scheme can, of course, be used for a traditional non-cooperative MIMO network. First, we show an efficient key management system that can provide secured communication and routing with a small number of keys shared between the clusters which cooperate on data transmission and reception. Then, we show a novel approach that can detect and identify compromised nodes in transmission process at physic layer. By key revocation the compromised nodes are discarded and the clusters/virtual MIMO nodes are selfreconfigured. The primary evaluation shows that the key management system can secure communication and routing with small number of keys, and the approach for detecting compromised nodes is very effective.

Strong Security Approach with Compromised Nodes Detection in Cognitive Radio Sensor Networks

“…Detecting the compromised nodes at random times has two advantages. First, in the fixed-time detection scheme [19], the compromised nodes can pretend to be trustworthy nodes by sending the correct data only at the detection time. However, in this proposed scheme, they are not able to do it since they do not know when the detection process will be performed.…”

“…In [19,20,21], we investigated a secured communication scheme in cross layered manner for cooperative MIMO networks. The scheme combines a cryptographic technique implemented in higher layers and data assurance analysis at the physical layer.…”