SeC-SDWSN: Secure cluster-based SDWSN environment for QoS guaranteed routing in three-tier architecture

Software defined wireless sensor network (SDWSN) is a recent evolution in networking that improves network performance and scalability. However, Quality of Service (QoS) and security are major the issues in SDWSN due to inefficient route selection (traffic load minimization algorithm) and insecure cryptography scheme (homomorphic algorithm). This paper proposes novel three-tier architecture for secure cluster-based SDWSN (SeC-SDWSN) environment to ensure QoS and security for WSN using SDN. In the first tier, sensor nodes are segregated into multiple clusters by secure hash tree-based clustering (SHTC) algorithm. Within each secure cluster, data transmission is performed through optimal route selected by adaptive spider monkey optimization (ASMO) algorithm in which two new fitness factors (F-1, F-2) are formulated by multiple QoS metrics. For data security, parallel advanced encryption standard with cipher block chaining (PAES-CBC) algorithm is proposed. Aggregated ciphertext is transmitted to optimal switch in the second tier by using fuzzy weighted technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (FW-TOPSIS) algorithm according to selection criteria. Switches forward the data to sink node based on flow rules deployed by SDN controllers in the third tier. SDN controllers provide global view on the entire network and deploy flow rules on switches in accordance to network status and security level. Extensive simulation in ns-3 shows that the proposed three-tier architecture achieves 5% throughput improvement, 7.8% PDR improvement, and 16% energy consumption improvement.