An adaptive security protocol for a wireless sensor-based monitoring network in smart grid transmission lines

摘要

In this paper, we propose a new security protocol for a wireless sensor network, which is designed for monitoring long range power transmission lines in smart grid. Part of the monitoring network is composed of optical fiber composite over head ground wire (OPGW), thus it can be secured with conventional security protocol. However, the wireless sensor network between two neighboring OPGW gateways remains vulnerable. Our proposed security protocol focuses on the wireless sensor network part, it provides mutual authentication, data integrity, and data confidentiality for both uplink and downlink transmissions between the sensor nodes and the OPGW gateway. Besides, our proposed protocol is adaptive to the dynamic node changes of the monitoring sensor network; for example, new sensors are added to the network, or some of the sensors are malfunctioning. We further propose a self-healing process using an "i-neighboring nodes" public key structure and an asymmetric algorithm. We also conduct energy consumption analysis for both general and extreme conditions to show that our security protocol improves the availability of the monitoring sensor network. Copyright (C) 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.