Abstract
Cryptographic key distribution is always a major problem in large scale wireless communications such as Acoustic Sensor Networks (ASNs) based on wireless sensors in an Internet of Things (IoT) environment. Because of the resource constraints of the nodes in such networks, the traditional cryptographic primitives are not suitable solutions. Our endeavor in this paper is to develop a new deterministic key distribution mechanism for such networks. In particular, we bring in a novel construction methodology from two-dimensional geometry by exploiting the properties of regular Hexagon. One advantage of using the proposed approach, as opposed to randomized distribution techniques, is that, the configurations have a compact and efficient algebraic description. This yields nice algorithm for shared-key discovery, in which very little information (or no information at all) needs to be broadcasted. Furthermore, it is shown that the security strength of the proposed approach outperforms well-known deterministic techniques in terms of resilience. Furthermore, the distribution technique ensures 100% connectivity (i.e., the probability that two nodes share a key is 1) and average key-path length is 1.
•A new deterministic key distribution mechanism for acoustic sensor networks.•The construction methodology uses the properties of regular Hexagon.•The configurations have a compact and efficient algebraic description.