Performance of the Eschenauer-Gligor key distribution scheme under an ON/OFF channel

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the secure connectivity of wireless sensor networks using the Eschenauer-Gligor key distribution scheme over unreliable on/off channels, providing the first complete zero-one law analysis under non-full visibility conditions.

Contribution

It introduces the first comprehensive zero-one law analysis of the EG scheme with unreliable links, extending previous work assuming full visibility.

Findings

Network remains connected with high probability under certain scaling conditions.

Zero-one laws accurately predict secure connectivity in simulations.

Results extend to more realistic disk models, validating theoretical predictions.

Abstract

We investigate the secure connectivity of wireless sensor networks under the random key distribution scheme of Eschenauer and Gligor. Unlike recent work which was carried out under the assumption of full visibility, here we assume a (simplified) communication model where unreliable wireless links are represented as on/off channels. We present conditions on how to scale the model parameters so that the network i) has no secure node which is isolated and ii) is securely connected, both with high probability when the number of sensor nodes becomes large. The results are given in the form of full zero-one laws, and constitute the first complete analysis of the EG scheme under non-full visibility. Through simulations these zero-one laws are shown to be valid also under a more realistic communication model, i.e., the disk model. The relations to the Gupta and Kumar's conjecture on the connectivity of geometric random graphs with randomly deleted edges are also discussed.