Energy Efficiency and Implementation Cost of Trust-Aware Routing Solutions in WSNs

Wireless Sensor Networks are gaining popularity due to the fact that they offer low-cost solutions for a variety of application areas. However, these networks are highly susceptible to attacks, due to both the open and distributed nature of the network, as well as the limited resources of the nodes, which dictate the implementation of sophisticated security frameworks. Addressing this challenge in this paper, we present a distributed trust management framework, which allows for trusted path selection. The framework has been initially evaluated based on simulations in JSIM, and then adapted and implemented in state-of-the-art sensor nodes. In this paper, we discuss its implementation feasibility and cost, as well as the energy consumption issues.