Key establishment in sensor networks based on triangle grid deployment model

Key establishment between neighboring nodes is a fundamental issue for securing sensor networks deployed in unattended and hostile environments. Recent research often assumed a probabilistic approach by pre-distributing a random set of secrets to each node such that any two neighboring nodes can establish a direct key with a certain probability or negotiate an indirect key through multi-hop routing after deployment. The shortcomings include poor resilience against node compromise, low secure connectivity, etc. In this paper, we present a key establishment scheme based on a triangle grid deployment model. In contrast to previous proposals, our scheme have higher resilience to node compromise attacks with much smaller memory costs, while maintaining high secure connectivity so that much less energy needs to be consumed in establishing indirect keys through multi-hop or multi-path routing.