LQI-DCPSec: Secure Distributed d-Cluster Formation in Wireless Sensor Networks

In wireless sensor networks (WSN), grouping of small group nodes, called clusters, is an effective technique for facilitating scalability, self-organization, energy saving, access channels, routing, data aggregation, etc. Several clustering protocols have been proposed for WSN. Depending on the order in which the formation of clusters and the election of cluster leaders are performed, these protocols can be subdivided into two categories: the Leader-First (LF) and the Cluster-First (CF) approaches. In LF approaches, clusterheads are first elected according to certain metrics (e.g., degree of connectivity, remaining energy), and then agree to assign the other nodes to different clusters. While in CF techniques, all sensors first form clusters, and then each cluster chooses its leader. In previous work, we proposed LQI-DCP, which is a non-secure distributed protocol for multihop clustering with an LF approach. During the clustering process, one or more malicious nodes could attempt to disrupt the cluster leader election by electing illegitimate nodes. In this paper we propose LQI-DCPSec which is a secure version of LQI-DCP that we will compare, in terms of energy consumption, to SEFA which is another secure clustering algorithm using an LF approach. Simulation results show that LQI-DCPSec is more energy-efficient than SEFA.