Trust-Based Intelligent Routing Protocol with Q-Learning for Mission-Critical Wireless Sensor Networks.

Mission-critical wireless sensor networks require a trustworthy and punctual routing protocol to ensure the worst-case end-to-end delay and reliability when transmitting mission-critical data collected by various sensors to gateways. In particular, the trustworthiness of mission-critical data must be guaranteed for decision-making and secure communications. However, it is a challenging issue to meet the requirement of both reliability and QoS in sensor networking environments where cyber-attacks may frequently occur and a lot of mission-critical data is generated. This study proposes a trust-based routing protocol that learns the trust elements using Q-learning to detect various attacks and ensure network performance. The proposed mechanism ensures the prompt detection of cyber threats that may occur in a mission-critical wireless sensor network and guarantees the trustworthy transfer of mission-critical sensor data. This paper introduces a distributed transmission technology that prioritizes the trustworthiness of mission-critical data through Q-learning results considering trustworthiness, QoS, and energy factors. It is a technology suitable for mission-critical wireless sensor network operational environments and can reliably operate resource-constrained devices. We implemented and performed a comprehensive evaluation of our scheme using the OPNET simulator. In addition, we measured packet delivery rates, throughput, survivability, and delay considering the characteristics of mission-critical sensor networks. The simulation results show an enhanced performance when compared with other mechanisms.

Trust Based Multipath QoS Routing Protocol for Mission-Critical Data Transmission in Tactical Ad-Hoc Networks.

In tactical ad-hoc networks, the importance of various tactical sensors and mission-critical data is increasing owing to their role in determining a tactical situation and ensuring the viability of soldiers. In particular, the reliability of mission-critical data has to be ensured for accurate situation determination and decision making. However, managing the network and trustworthiness in an environment where malicious nodes exist and a large amount of mission-critical data occur is a challenging issue. To solve these issues, a routing protocol is needed that can effectively detect malicious nodes and ensure the reliability and quality of service (QoS) of mission-critical data. In this paper, we propose a trust-based multipath QoS routing protocol (called MC_TQR) for tactical ad-hoc networks that can detect malicious nodes and satisfy the requirements of mission-critical data. The proposed scheme is verified using an OPNET simulator, and the results confirm the improved network performance when compared with existing schemes.

A Stepwise and Hybrid Trust Evaluation Scheme for Tactical Wireless Sensor Networks.

In tactical wireless sensor networks, tactical sensors are increasingly expected to be exploited for information collection in battlefields or dangerous areas on behalf of soldiers. The main function of these networks is to use sensors to measure radiation, nuclear, and biochemical values for the safety of allies and also to monitor and carry out reconnaissance of enemies. These tactical sensors require a network traffic flow that sends various types of measured information to the gateway, which needs high reliability. To ensure reliability, it must be able to detect malicious nodes that perform packet-dropping attacks to disrupt the network traffic flow, and energy-constrained sensors require energy-efficient methods to detect them. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a stepwise and hybrid trust evaluation scheme for locating malicious nodes that perform packet-dropping attacks in a tree-based network. Sensors send a query to the gateway by observing the traffic patterns of their child nodes. Moreover, depending on the situation, the gateway detects malicious nodes by choosing between gateway-assisted trust evaluation and gateway-independent trust evaluation. We implemented and evaluated the proposed scheme with the OPNET simulator, and the results showed that a higher packet delivery ratio can be achieved with significantly lower energy consumption.