Clustering Oriented Architectures in Medical Sensor Environments

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks are expected to make a significant contribution in the healthcare sector by enabling continuous patient monitoring. Since medical services and the associated to them information are considered particularly sensitive, the employment of wireless sensors in medical environments poses many security issues and challenges. However, security services and the underlying key management mechanisms cannot be seen separately from the efficiency and scalability requirements. Network clustering used in both routing and group key management mechanisms can improve the efficiency and scalability and therefore can also be envisioned in medical environments. This paper introduces a general framework for cluster-based wireless sensor medical environments on the top of which efficient security mechanisms can rely. We describe two different scenarios for infrastructure and infrastructureless application environments, covering this way a wide area of medical applications (in-hospital and medical emergencies). We also examine the existing group-key management schemes for cluster-based wireless networks and discuss which protocols fit best for each proposed scenario.

A provably secure cluster-based hybrid hierarchical group key agreement for large wireless ad hoc networks

“…Different CH are used to control each cluster and it minimizes the total load on a single point (GC). For instance consider one of the most promising applications [24] of clusterbased hierarchical GKA over WSNs in the healthcare sector. NM-CHH-GKA over infrastructure-based WSN situation is appropriate for medical environments in which one can have numerous powerful nodes those can take CH role, such as intra-hospital environments.…”

“…Whenever a node wants to send out data, the node closer to the gateway (best path) is selected as the CH. For further information please refer [24]. ii.…”

“…In view of the MANET's (Mobile Adhoc Network) dynamic, the proposed protocols adeptly address the dynamic events. It is designed exclusive of utilizing calculation-exhaustive pairings [22] and is extremely efficient relative to the existing hybrid cluster-based GKA protocols [20,[23][24][25][26][27][28][29].…”

On Clustering in Sensor Networks

“…The first list is obtained according to the method proposed in Gupta & Younis (2003b), the second one is obtained with a simple visibility condition between the cluster head and a sensor. In Klaoudatou et al (2008), Klaoudatou et al consider medical surveillance sensor networks of which the nodes are mobiles. They select the closest node to the base station (in ad-hoc environment during the emergencies on the spot or using access points in the hospital) as a cluster head.…”

“…The cluster heads broadcast then an advertisement message and the sensors join the nearest candidate cluster head, in a multi hop way up to the limit of the size of the clusters. In Klaoudatou et al (2008), the speed is used a criterion (cf. below).…”