NPKPS: A novel pairwise key pre-distribution scheme for wireless sensor networks

Key establishment in sensor networks is a challenging problem for the constrained energy, memory, and computational capabilities of the sensor nodes. In this paper, a novel pairwise key pre-distribution scheme based on deployment knowledge was proposed (NPKPS). In NPKPS, the sensor nodes are divided into some groups, inner group pairwise keys are set up by a group key, and intergroup pairwise keys are established by Blom´s key pre-distribution scheme. We describe the details of the algorithm and compare it with other proposed schemes. Comparison and theory analysis show that the proposed scheme achieves better performance in terms of wireless sensor networks security, efficiency and key connectivity.