A Game-Theoretic Framework for Robust Optimal Intrusion Detection in Wireless Sensor Networks

A robust optimization model is considered for nonzero-sum discounted stochastic games with incomplete information in order to formally formulate and analyze the intrusion detection problem in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Security requirements of WSNs are taken into account to characterize the game parameters and model the player objectives. To generalize the problem, the game data are assumed not to be fully known to the players, who take a robust optimization approach to address this data uncertainty. For assessing the validity and effectiveness of the framework, illustrative instances of the developed game model are generated. Equilibrium analysis reveals how the conflicting objectives of the intruder and intrusion detection system compel them to adopt different conservative stances toward data uncertainty. It is also shown, by numerical results, that the robust approach in the presence of uncertainty reduces the sensitivity of the solution with respect to data perturbations, and thus improves design stability.