Accurate time synchronization is fundamental to the correct and efficient operation of Wireless Sensor Networks(WSNs),especially in security-critical,time-sensitive applications.However,most existing protocols degrade...Accurate time synchronization is fundamental to the correct and efficient operation of Wireless Sensor Networks(WSNs),especially in security-critical,time-sensitive applications.However,most existing protocols degrade substantially under malicious interference.We introduce iSTSP,an Intelligent and Secure Time Synchronization Protocol that implements a four-stage defense pipeline to ensure robust,precise synchronization even in hostile environments:(1)trust preprocessing that filters node participation using behavioral trust scoring;(2)anomaly isolation employing a lightweight autoencoder to detect and excise malicious nodes in real time;(3)reliability-weighted consensus that prioritizes high-trust nodes during time aggregation;and(4)convergence-optimized synchronization that dynamically adjusts parameters using theoretical stability bounds.We provide rigorous convergence analysis including a closed-form expression for convergence time,and validate the protocol through both simulations and realworld experiments on a controlled 16-node testbed.Under Sybil attacks with five malicious nodes within this testbed,iSTSP maintains synchronization error increases under 12%and achieves a rapid convergence.Compared to state-ofthe-art protocols like TPSN,SE-FTSP,and MMAR-CTS,iSTSP offers 60%faster detection,broader threat coverage,and more than 7 times lower synchronization error,with a modest 9.3%energy overhead over 8 h.We argue this is an acceptable trade-off for mission-critical deployments requiring guaranteed security.These findings demonstrate iSTSP’s potential as a reliable solution for secure WSN synchronization and motivate future work on large-scale IoT deployments and integration with energy-efficient communication protocols.展开更多
基金this project under Geran Putra Inisiatif(GPI)with reference of GP-GPI/2023/976210。
文摘Accurate time synchronization is fundamental to the correct and efficient operation of Wireless Sensor Networks(WSNs),especially in security-critical,time-sensitive applications.However,most existing protocols degrade substantially under malicious interference.We introduce iSTSP,an Intelligent and Secure Time Synchronization Protocol that implements a four-stage defense pipeline to ensure robust,precise synchronization even in hostile environments:(1)trust preprocessing that filters node participation using behavioral trust scoring;(2)anomaly isolation employing a lightweight autoencoder to detect and excise malicious nodes in real time;(3)reliability-weighted consensus that prioritizes high-trust nodes during time aggregation;and(4)convergence-optimized synchronization that dynamically adjusts parameters using theoretical stability bounds.We provide rigorous convergence analysis including a closed-form expression for convergence time,and validate the protocol through both simulations and realworld experiments on a controlled 16-node testbed.Under Sybil attacks with five malicious nodes within this testbed,iSTSP maintains synchronization error increases under 12%and achieves a rapid convergence.Compared to state-ofthe-art protocols like TPSN,SE-FTSP,and MMAR-CTS,iSTSP offers 60%faster detection,broader threat coverage,and more than 7 times lower synchronization error,with a modest 9.3%energy overhead over 8 h.We argue this is an acceptable trade-off for mission-critical deployments requiring guaranteed security.These findings demonstrate iSTSP’s potential as a reliable solution for secure WSN synchronization and motivate future work on large-scale IoT deployments and integration with energy-efficient communication protocols.