• Journal of the Korea Institute of Military Science and Technology
• /
• v.11 no.5
• /
• pp.58-70
• /
• 2008

Earlier researches on Sensor Networks preferred symmetric key-based authentication schemes in consideration of limitations in network resources. However, recent advancements in cryptographic algorithms and sensor-node manufacturing techniques have opened suggestion to public key-based solutions such as Merkle tree-based schemes. These previous schemes, however, must perform the authentication process one-by-one in hierarchical manner and thus are not fit to be used as primary authentication methods in sensor networks which require mass of multiple authentications at any given time. This paper proposes a new concept of public key-based authentication that can be effectively applied to sensor networks. This scheme is based on exponential distributed data concept, a derivative from Shamir's (t, n) threshold scheme, in which the authentication of neighbouring nodes are done simultaneously while minimising resources of sensor nodes and providing network scalability. The performance advantages of this scheme on memory usage, communication overload and scalability compared to Merkle tree-based authentication are clearly demonstrated using performance analysis.