Title: Secure Enhanced Wireless Sensor Nodes by means of Autonomic Computing and Virtualization Techniques
Author: Bjoern Stelte
Partner: Universitaet der Bundeswehr Muenchen
Supervisor: Gabi Dreo Rodosek (UniBwM)
Year of start: 2008
Year of end: tbd

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are closely related to mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs) due to sharing the same general problems. Nonetheless, there are some differences between both concepts, first of all with respect to energy considerations. WSN nodes in contrast to MANET nodes have only limited resources like mostly non-rechargeable batteries, fewer memory, slower CPUs and so on. The lifetime of a WSN can be shortened rapidly by misbehaving nodes or attacks on the network. Security aspects like self-healing and self-protection help to increase the operational readiness and protect the network against attacks. Former discussed concepts focused on self-configuration due to the complexity of large scale networks.

Self-management concepts for WSN nodes in the context of security are in the focus of my work. Concepts taken from the well-know Autonomic Computing research field as well as virtualization concepts are so far not applyed in WSNs. But exactly these concepts are the key for developing further secure and reliable sensor nodes, operating systems, and applications of the next generation.