SECURE ULTRASONIC LOCALIZATION AND AUTHENTICATION FOR SENSOR NETWORKS

A main aspect in wireless sensor networks (WSN) with numerous sensor nodes is location awareness. While major scientific activities are concentrated to ultra-wideband solutions, some systems specially designed for indoor application try to rely on ultrasonic localization. This paper presents a system with ultrasonic localization of sensor nodes (“Indoor-GPS”) and shows advantages and disadvantages of such a solution. Because location information is a crucial parameter which may be manipulated for attacking the sensor network, aspects of sensor node compromise are pointed out. Advantages of ultrasonic localization for sensor authentication are displayed which are especially given using permanently installed ultrasonic location measurement tools with periodic activity. Copyright © 2007 IFAC