Abstract
Random key pre-distribution scheme is a flexible key management scheme for wireless sensor networks. Over the past years, numerous studies have been proposed to address this problem. However, most of them may suffer some drawbacks. The major drawback is that each sensor node demands large storage to maintain high connectivity. Another drawback is that attacks from compromised nodes can not be completely eliminated. In this thesis, we propose a new pair-wise key establishment scheme based on the combination of a small key pool and the pigeon-hole principle. We ensure that the pair-wise key for each pair of sensor nodes is different from the others. Therefore, attacks from compromised nodes will never occur in our scheme. We also reduce the storage and maintain high connectivity simultaneously. Most significantly, we achieve the merit of fully connectivity which means that each node can build all secure relations with its neighbors. Moreover, we design a probability model to analyze the average length of paths which was built in path-key establishment phase. Comparing to other schemes, our scheme is energy-efficient in contrast to the previous works, including computation overhead and communication overhead. Finally, simulations on connectivity and average length of path built in path-key phase are also conducted.