An Efficient Secure Scheme Based on Hierarchical Topology in the Smart Home Environment

As the Internet of Things (IoT) has developed, the emerging sensor network (ESN) that integrates emerging technologies, such as autonomous driving, cyber-physical systems, mobile nodes, and existing sensor networks has been in the limelight. Smart homes have been researched and developed by various companies and organizations. Emerging sensor networks have some issues of providing secure service according to a new environment, such as a smart home, and the problems of low power and low-computing capacity for the sensor that previous sensor networks were equipped with. This study classifies various sensors used in smart homes into three classes and contains the hierarchical topology for efficient communication. In addition, a scheme for establishing secure communication among sensors based on physical unclonable functions (PUFs) that cannot be physically cloned is suggested in regard to the sensor’s low performance. In addition, we analyzed this scheme by conducting security and performance evaluations proving to constitute secure channels while consuming fewer resources. We believe that our scheme can provide secure communication by using fewer resources in a smart home environment in the future.