Reconfigurable Feedback Shift Register Based Stream Cipher for Wireless Sensor Networks

Secure wireless communications among sensor nodes is critical to the deployment of wireless sensor networks. However, resource limited sensor nodes cannot afford complex cryptographic algorithms. In this letter, we propose a low complexity and energy efficient reconfigurable feedback shift register (RFSR) stream cipher. The RFSR adds one new dimension, reconfigurable cipher structure, to the existing stream ciphers. The proposed RFSR is then implemented on a field programmable gate array platform. Simulation results show that much lower power consumption, delay and transmission overhead are achieved compared to the existing microprocessor based cipher implementations.