Signaling game based strategy for secure positioning in wireless sensor networks

Sensor localization is demanded by wireless sensor networks, since the collected sensor data are meaningless if the position of the generating sensor is not available. The traditional approach of using GPS for location determination is not suitable for sensor networks, due to the increased costs and resource usage. For this reason, sensors exchange Radio Frequency messages, so as to measure their respective distances and determine their locations by means of multilateral triangulation with sensors of known positions, called anchors. Such an approach, however, is particularly vulnerable to several kinds of attacks aiming at causing wrong position estimations with a malicious intention. Such attacks can be tolerated with proper countermeasures, belonging to the so called secure localization, but this is achieved at the expenses of high costs in terms of exchanged messages and exhausted sensor resources, such as the battery. For these reasons, it is crucial to use the secure localization only when needed in order to extend considerably the life span of the sensors. Therefore, we propose to model the interaction of an anchor with a sensor as a signaling game, and to use such a formalization to discipline the use of secure positioning methods based on the received messages from the anchors. We have proved with simulations that such a solution is more efficient than a naive one of always applying secure localization.