An Energy-Efficient Reliable Trust-Based Data Aggregation Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks

Security data aggregation plays an important role in reducing the amount of data transmission and prolonging the life of wireless sensor networks (WSN). When the security of the aggregation nodes is threatened, the networks can generate many aggregated data errors, leading to trouble in a security measure. In this paper, we propose an energy-efficient reliable trust-based data aggregation protocol for WSN called the ERTDA protocol. Based on the observations of the nodal behavior, the ERTDA protocol calculates, monitors and evaluates the trust values of the nodes; it also detects and excludes the compromised nodes in a timely manner. The simulation results illustrate that the ERTDA protocol can effectively improve the accuracy of the aggregation, reduce the nodal mortality rate, reduce the nodal energy consumption, improve the reliability of the data transmission and extend the life of the networks.