Vulnerability Analysis of Wireless Sensor Networks via Maximum Flow Interdiction

Due to limited resource and changing environments, wireless sensor networks are susceptible to device failures. In this paper, we evaluate network’s vulnerability under potential device failures or attacking. Specifically, we model wireless sensors and their operating procedure as an S-T network, where the information rate regarding the network performance is defined. The network robustness is evaluated via considering how network capacity varies when network changes. The evaluation process turns out to be a maximum flow interdiction problem, which is then solved by transforming into a dual formation and approximating with a linear programming. Lastly, via numerical simulation, the proposed scheme is shown to be well suitable for evaluating network’s robustness.