Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) play a major role in various applications, but the main challenge is to maintain security and balanced energy efficiency. Classical routing protocols struggle to achieve both energy efficiency and security because they are more vulnerable to security risks and resource limitations. This paper introduces QSEER, a novel approach that uses quantum technologies to overcome these limitations. QSEER employs quantum-inspired optimization algorithms that leverage superposition and entanglement principles to efficiently explore multiple routing possibilities, thereby identifying energy-efficient paths and reducing redundant transmissions. The proposed protocol enhances the security of data transmission against eavesdropping and tampering by using the principles of quantum mechanics, thus mitigating potential security vulnerabilities. Through extensive simulations, we demonstrated the effectiveness of QSEER in achieving both security and energy efficiency objectives, which achieves 15.1% lower energy consumption compared to state-of-the-art protocols while maintaining 99.8% data integrity under various attack scenarios, extending network lifetime by an average of 42%. These results position QSEER as a significant advancement for next-generation WSN deployments in critical applications such as environmental monitoring, smart infrastructure, and healthcare systems.
Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) play a major role in various applications, but the main challenge is to maintain security and balanced energy efficiency. Classical routing protocols struggle to achieve both energy efficiency and security because they are more vulnerable to security risks and resource limitations. This paper introduces QSEER, a novel approach that uses quantum technologies to overcome these limitations. QSEER employs quantum-inspired optimization algorithms that leverage superposition and entanglement principles to efficiently explore multiple routing possibilities, thereby identifying energy-efficient paths and reducing redundant transmissions. The proposed protocol enhances the security of data transmission against eavesdropping and tampering by using the principles of quantum mechanics, thus mitigating potential security vulnerabilities. Through extensive simulations, we demonstrated the effectiveness of QSEER in achieving both security and energy efficiency objectives, which achieves 15.1% lower energy consumption compared to state-of-the-art protocols while maintaining 99.8% data integrity under various attack scenarios, extending network lifetime by an average of 42%. These results position QSEER as a significant advancement for next-generation WSN deployments in critical applications such as environmental monitoring, smart infrastructure, and healthcare systems.
Greater security pledges, reduced latency, and increased energy efficiency are now more important than ever due to the Wireless Sensor Networks' (WSNs) explosive growth. Although they work well for many distributed systems, traditional cryptography techniques are slow for mission-critical sensor applications and are still susceptible to new quantum attackers. In order to improve WSN security and performance, this study proposes a unified framework that combines Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) with 5G communication capabilities. This expanded work builds on previous simulation studies before and after the third Doctoral Committee evaluation. It includes a refined 5G-enabled architecture, a lightweight QKD model, and extensive simulations that capture energy consumption, bandwidth variation, latency, Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR), and Quantum Bit Error Rate (QBER). The findings show that while QKD maintains robust security even under controlled levels of quantum noise, 5G-assisted WSNs greatly increase bandwidth usage and communication delay. The proposed 5G–QKD WSN consistently delivers decreased latency, stable PDR, and enhanced security without imposing severe energy penalties, according to comparative simulations versus classical LEACH and MULE-based baselines. These results lend credence to the viability of hybrid quantum-enhanced wireless networks for critical infrastructure monitoring, smart environments, and future extensive IoT deployments.
Abstract: Quantum-Based Wireless Sensor Networks (QWSNs) represent a promising evolution of traditional wireless sensor networks by integrating quantum communication principles to enhance data transmission security and reliability. This paper presents a systematic review of existing research on energy efficiency, secure communication, and reliable routing protocols in QWSNs. The study examines key advancements in quantum-based routing algorithms, energy optimization techniques, and cryptographic mechanisms that utilize quantum key distribution (QKD) for enhanced network security. Additionally, the review identifies major challenges, including scalability, resource constraints, and implementation complexity in real-world scenarios. By analyzing existing methodologies and highlighting research gaps, this work provides insights into potential directions for developing energy-efficient and secure routing frameworks in next-generation QWSNs. The findings emphasize the need for adaptive, lightweight, and quantum-compatible routing schemes to ensure sustainable and secure communication in future sensor network architectures. Keywords: Quantum-Based Wireless Sensor Networks (QWSNs); Energy Efficiency; Secure Routing; Quantum Key Distribution (QKD); Reliability; Cryptography; Network Optimization; Quantum Communication
Abstract Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) play a crucial role in various applications, ranging from environmental monitoring to industrial automation that require high levels of security. With the development of quantum technologies, many security mechanisms may be hacked due to the promising capabilities of quantum computation. To address this challenge, quantum protocols have emerged as a promising solution for enhancing the security of wireless sensor communications. One of the common types of quantum protocols is quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols, which are investigated to allow two participants with fully quantum capabilities to share a random secret key, while semi-quantum key distribution (SQKD) protocols are designed to perform the same task using fewer quantum resources to make quantum communications more realizable and practical. Quantum walk (QW) plays an essential role in quantum computing, which is a universal quantum computational paradigm. In this work, we utilize the advantages of QW to design three authenticated quantum cryptographic protocols to establish secure channels for data transmission between sensor nodes: the first one is authenticated quantum key distribution (AQKD), the second one is authenticated semi-quantum key distribution (ASQKD) with one of the two participants having limited quantum capabilities, and the last one is ASQKD but both legitimate users possess limited quantum resources. The advantages of the proposed protocols are that the partners can exchange several different keys with the same exchanged qubits, and the presented protocols depend on a one-way quantum communication channel. In contrast, all previously designed SQKD protocols rely on two-way quantum communication. Security analyses prove that the presented protocols are secure against various well-known attacks and highly efficient. The utilization of the presented protocols in wireless sensor communications opens up new avenues for secure and trustworthy data transmission, enabling the deployment of resilient WSNs in critical applications. This work also paves the way for future exploration of quantum-based security protocols and their integration into WSNs for enhanced data protection.
The use of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) in security-critical applications is growing, but because of their intrinsic resource limitations, they are vulnerable to a number of security risks, such as the disruptive black hole attack that can impede data collecting. We suggest Active Trust for WSNs, an active detection-based security and trust routing mechanism, as a solution to this problem. By actively generating numerous detection routes to quickly identify and establish nodal trust, Active Trust's primary innovation is in avoiding black holes and improving data route security. In order to ensure the required security and energy efficiency, the strategy optimizes energy utilization in non-hotspots to produce and distribute detection routes as needed. Extensive theoretical analysis and experimental results show that Active Trust performs better than other researches. Specifically engineered to thwart quantum attacks that leverage Quantum Key Distribution (QKD), Network lifetime is maximized by Active Trust, which dramatically increases data route success probability and resilience against black hole assaults.
The rapid development of Internet of Things (IoT) applications has led to the large-scale deployment of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) that incessantly generate and transmit sensitive data over wireless networks.Although the current mostly used symmetric encryption algorithm for securing such networks is the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), the advent of quantum computing threatens the long-term security of AES, as well as the weaknesses inherent to the key generation, distribution, and lifecycle management.This research paper proposes a Quantum Enhanced AES framework for IoT based WSNs which integrates the use of Quantum Random Number Generator (QRNG) based high entropy key generation, key injection against side channel attacks and dynamic session-based rekeying.Compared with classical AES and two state-of-the-art security frameworks based on quantum computing, i.e., QKDassisted AES scheme and lightweight post-quantum security hybrid AES framework, the proposed scheme increases the entropy of the key by about 20% (from 0.82 to 0.99), and lowers the key exposure risk by more than 60% by using session-based rekeying.Simulation results indicate that the proposed method can achieve up to 8 to10% higher throughput and 22% lower end-to-end delay than post-quantum AES schemes, and also prolongs the network lifetime by almost 15% under realistic IoT-WSN workloads.The framework maintains and does not alter the AES standard compliance and does not make any changes to the AES core, thus it ensures practical applicability.These results show that the proposed approach offers a good quantum resilience with low performance and energy overhead, which is suitable for long-lived and security-critical IoT-WSN deployment.
The requirement of efficient security protocols to protect confidential information from ever evolving cyber threat has been highlighted by the fast implementation of wireless sensor network (WSN) in numerous important domains, including healthcare monitoring, environmental surveillance and military operations. Despite their feasibility, traditional cryptographic approaches are utilized behind the computing capability of recent attackers, including the possibility of future quantum computer attacks. In order to revolutionize WSN security, this study proposes utilizing quantum cryptography and other concepts from quantum computing into the existing framework. This research leads to develop a communication protocol that is extremely safe and against the cyber-attacks. This protocol utilizes the quantum key distribution (QKD) to protect data and granting its confidential. In addition to improving security, the new architectures begin with change that makes WSN more capable of dependable and secure operations in environment where data protection is essential. A complete framework for protecting WSNs from new cyber threats in the future while keeping data transmissions and efficient process with reliability is discussed in this study. This proposed method enhances the dependencies in WSN installation across various industries, which is important for applications that need strong security measures. Evaluation results shows that the proposed method outperformed all existing methods in terms of relevant metrics.