MeDrone: On the use of a medical drone to heal a sensor network infected by a malicious epidemic

Nicola Roberto Zema (1) , Enrico Natalizio (1) , Michael Poss (2) , Giuseppe Ruggeri (3) , Antonella Molinaro (3)

1 Heudiasyc - Heuristique et Diagnostic des Systèmes Complexes [Compiègne]
2 MAORE - Methods, Algorithms for Operations REsearch
3 ARTS - advanced research for telecommunication system

The complexity increase in the software and hardware necessary to support more and more advanced applications for Wireless Sensor Networks conspicuously contribute to render them susceptible to security attacks. The nodes of most complex WSN applications sport desktop-level operating systems and this reliance on software make them ideal prey for traditional threats like viruses and general malware. To address these problems, in this paper we devise a system for a mobile node to locate, track, access and cure the infected nodes of a WSN threatened by a proximity malware infection. For this purpose we first devise a curing operation scheme for a dedicated mobile node and then we provide an implementation for it in form of a multiprocess network and movement protocol. In parallel, we provide a mathematical formulation for the aforementioned operation scheme in order to provide an optimized solution. We perform extended simulations putting our proposal against different movement schemes in different network scenarios and we use the results of the mathematical formulation as a benchmark. Furthermore, we introduce a variation of our proposal capable to support the concurrent operation of multiple mobile actors and implement cooperation.

Mots clés: Optimization; Networks of autonomous agents; Sensor networks

Domaines: Réseaux et télécommunications [cs.NI]

Nicola Roberto Zema, Enrico Natalizio, Michael Poss, Giuseppe Ruggeri, Antonella Molinaro. MeDrone: On the use of a medical drone to heal a sensor network infected by a malicious epidemic. Ad Hoc Networks, 2016, 50, pp.115-127. ⟨10.1016/j.adhoc.2016.06.008⟩. ⟨hal-01396858⟩