Chapter-1

Introduction
Wireless Sensor Network WSN & Ad-Hoc Network Application of WSN Problem Definition Brief Outline of the Project Structure of the Dissertation

INTRODUCTION
1.1 WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORK Advances in digital and radio frequency microelectronics have enabled the development of low cost, low power, small sized, multi-functional embedded devices called nodes (also referred to as motes to emphasize their small size) which can communicate wirelessly. These individual nodes, in spite of their limitations (restricted in CPU speed, RF power, memory capacity and bandwidth) and simple radio communication, may be combined together to physically sense and report information relating to their environment (temperature, vibration, humidity, light, radiation, etc.). This combination (usually a large number) of the distributed nodes is called a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). The nodes in a WSN, by communicating with one another in a multihop network with a Base Station (BS), can collect data over a large geographical area [1], [2]. WSN can be deployed randomly in inaccessible areas and the positions of the nodes need not be predetermined. WSN nodes are usually battery powered and may be required to operate for long periods. When batteries get exhausted, a node becomes out of service and network performance is degraded [3]. Wireless transmission and reception makes significant demands on available energy in addition to the need to process the data, sense the environment etc [4]. Thus, energy efficiency is an important consideration in a protocol design for multi-hop networks like WSNs. This had strong influence on the design of protocols. The nodes that are used to detect environmental events and send these as message to the other nodes are called source nodes; while the nodes that are dedicated as gathering points are called the sink nodes. The sink nodes absorb message packets and do not retransmit data messages. Sometimes special nodes called base stations are also deployed, which contain higher resources (laptop class) than a normal node; these normally control the WSN and gather all the environmental data. A BS is always a sink but a sink might not be a BS. The remaining nodes of a network act as routing/intermediate nodes and are used to forward data from the sources to the sinks. The number of sinks or sources required in a network depends on the application of the 2

WSN. In some WSNs a sink node acts as gateway node [5], [6]. The gateway nodes are connected to external networks (by wireless or wired communication) and the data from the complete WSN is gathered. Figure 1.1 illustrates a typical WSN, showing source, sink, gateway and intermediate nodes. The arrows indicate bidirectional links.

Figure 1.1 Wireless Sensor Network

An important consideration in WSN is the communication medium. Choices include radio frequency (RF), optical link, infrared, and ultrasound (US). Optical link are appropriate for certain applications like smart dust, which contain sand-sized nodes that scavenge energy from their environment. Some networks also use a different frequency optical link called infrared. Both require line of sight between nodes and are influenced by weather conditions. RF on the other hand is widely applicable because it doesn't require line of sight. Finally, both RF and the optical signals fail under water, whilst ultrasound (US) has been successfully used for submarine communications. Communication in all of these media may be adversely effected by the environment in which the WSN operates. As WSNs most often employ RF for communication, the environmental factors like interference (noise) and signal fading can cause substantial message loss.

1.2

WSN AND Ad-Hoc NETWORK In contrast to wired networks [7], each node may act as a router in WSNs and

WSNs do not require any infrastructure. These properties enable WSNs to monitor data in hostile environments which would be difficult for wired networks. WSNs, if used wisely, can also be deployed in a wilderness for some time without being charged. Another category of wireless network type is the ad-hoc. These networks may be a set of laptops connected together wirelessly, for a specific purpose. These networks self-configure and they operate without management or infrastructure. A combination of mobiles and PDAs also falls within the description of ad-hoc networks [8] [9]. The WSN is different from traditional ad-hoc networks in several ways: WSN nodes have limited memory, power (nonrenewable), and computational capacities instead of the ad-hoc network's powerful nodes like laptops and PDAs. Energy efficiency is less important for the ad-hoc nodes. The number of nodes (scalability) in a WSN is much higher. The nodes are more densely deployed in WSN. WSN always has one or more powerful nodes (base stations) instead of all being the same role (homogeneous) nodes in ad-hoc networks. Nodes in WSNs must cope with frequent topology change due to addition or deletion of the nodes (as a result of node/power failure, intermittent radio interference, and environmental factors). WSN nodes may fail due to their harsh environment. The nodes in WSN are usually considered stationary whereas the ad-hoc Network nodes may be mobile (MANET) [10]. Although the resources of WSNs have some limitations compared to the ad-hoc network. Dense/large deployment of WSN (a great number of nodes) gives a high level of fault tolerance and large area coverage.

The small radio range of WSN means nodes may always be near to their sensed object and thus environmental factors such as interference in the measurement will be small as compared to ad-hoc networks.

High density may enable several nodes to measure the same variable which improves the quality of sensing and may support the authentication of the sensed data. Thus, WSN in most cases provide precision in monitoring as compared to the ad-hoc networks.

1.3

APPLICATIONS OF WSN WSNs have numerous applications. They have been used to measure the

temperature, humidity, pressure, noise level, lightening conditions, soil make up, movements (vehicles or living objects) including speed and direction, the presence or absence of certain kinds of objects, and mechanical stress levels in the structures. The fault tolerance, self organisation and rapid/low cost deployment enables WSN to be used in some military applications. If the nodes are deployed densely and in large numbers, the desired results can still be achieved by WSN, even in the hostile environments and following the destruction of some nodes by the attackers. In traditional networks a minor failure may incapacitate the whole system. WSNs also have been used in environmental, health, commercial and home applications. Some of the potential applications of WSN are categorized below [11-13]: Military applications include military command and control; military communication and intelligence; battle damage assessment and surveillance; reconnaissance of opposing forces and terrains; monitoring friendly forces, equipment and ammunition; guidance and navigation systems; and biological and chemical attack detection. Environmental applications include track the movement of insects, small animals and birds; monitoring environmental conditions affecting crops; irrigation monitoring; earth and environmental monitoring; planet exploration; precision agriculture; forest fire detection; flood detection (rainfall, water level and weather sensors); pollution study and geophysical research.

Health applications include patient monitoring (especially for disabled patients); telemonitoring of human physiological data (help doctors identify predefined symptoms earlier); tracking doctor's location in hospital; monitoring patients (heart rate, blood pressure etc.); and drug administration.

Commercial/home applications like environmental control in rooms (air conditioning and heating); remotely controlling commercial/home appliances (VCR, ovens, microwave, vacuum cleaners, refrigerators etc); monitoring product quality in factories; robot control and guidance in automatic manufacturing environments; machine diagnosis (faults/working etc); transportation; preventing car theft; and vehicle tracking on highways and roads.

1.4

PROBLEM DEFINITION In WSN, sensor nodes use wireless communication to send packets. Due to

limited transmission range, a sensor node uses multi hop transmission to deliver the packet to a base station. Hence a packet is forwarded through so many nodes to reach the destination. Sensor networks are usually deployed in hostile environment where an adversary can compromise some internal nodes which may launch various inside attacks. One kind of attack caused by malicious nodes is Black Hole. The black hole attack is one of the simplest routing attacks in WSNs. In a black hole attack, the attacker swallows (i.e. receives but does not forward) all the messages he receives, just as a black hole absorbing everything passing by. By refusing to forward any message he receives, the attacker will affect all the traffic flowing through it. Hence, the throughput of a subset of nodes, especially the neighboring nodes around the attacker and with traffic through it, is dramatically decreased. Different locations of the attacker induce different influences on the network. If the attacker is located close to the base station, all the traffic going to the base station might need to go through the attacker. Obviously, black hole attacks in this case can break the communication between the base station and the rest of the WSN, and effectively prevent the WSN from serving its purposes. In contrast, if a black hole attacking node is at the edge of the WSN, probably very few sensors need it to communicate with others. Therefore, the harm can be very limited. 6

1.5

BRIEF OUTLINE OF THE PROJECT Monitoring is the main application of the sensor networks. But, due to malicious

nodes present in the sensor networks, packets are dropped due to which some of the monitored data is lost. These may degrade the performance of the application. For example, in military battle field; if the data is lost about enemy tanks arrival, then it may lead to loss of the battle. This project concerns about the various attacks on WSN routing protocols, particularly on black hole attacks which prevent the data from reaching the end points (sinks). This type of attack is most challenging to detect and avoid. This project work focuses on the effects of black hole attack on AODV routing protocol in WSNs for different coverage area and size of nodes.

1.6

STRUCTURE OF THE DISSERTATION

The remainder of dissertation is organized as follows: Chapter 2 deals with classification of different types of attacks in WSN and presents related methods to mitigate such attacks in WSN. Chapter 3 describes about the mechanism involved in AODV routing protocol in full detail especially routing discovery and packet forwarding of AODV routing protocol. Further, this chapter discusses about the implementation of Black Hole attack in AODV protocol. Chapter 4 discusses about the simulation tool and simulated results for different scenario. This chapter also deals with the performance evaluation of different scenarios with and without malicious nodes using AODV routing Protocol. Chapter 5 concludes the thesis with conclusion & future Scope.