Physiological-signal-based key negotiation protocols for body sensor networks: A survey

•Giving the challenges of designing key negotiation protocols for BSNs.•Dividing the physiological-signal-based key negotiation protocols into two families.•Presenting the core ideas of these protocols and analyzing their merits and demerits.

A body sensor network (BSN) is a type of network for Internet of Things. A BSN typically consists of tens (dozens) of biosensor nodes distributed on/in the human body, and these autonomous nodes can form a wireless network to measure physiological signals and execute intelligent treatment automatically. BSNs have wide application prospects in intelligent healthcare. Because physiological signals measured and processed by BSNs involve patient privacy, security mechanisms must be developed to secure BSNs, and therefore the adoption of available key negotiation protocols is fundamental. Due to stringently limited operation resources, BSNs require these protocols to be highly energy efficient. Recent development has discovered that certain physiological signals can be used for efficiently negotiating common keys among biosensor nodes. These signals and fuzzy technology are used to design lightweight key negotiation protocols, and many solutions have been proposed. In this paper, we explore and classify these solutions, and evaluate their performance by analyzing their merits and drawbacks. Finally, we present open research issues that should be solved in the future.