Authors:
Oliver Stecklina
1
;
Peter Langendörfer
1
and
Hannes Menzel
2
Affiliations:
1
IHP, Germany
;
2
Distributed Systems/Operating Systems Group and Brandenburg University of Technology, Germany
Keyword(s):
Wireless sensor node, Microcontroller, Virtualization, Memory protection, Security, Isolation, Operating system.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Embedded Communications Systems
;
Low-Power Electronics
;
Mobile and Pervasive Computing
;
Pervasive Embedded Devices
;
Security and Privacy
;
Software Architectures
;
Telecommunications
;
Ubiquitous Computing Systems and Services
Abstract:
Wireless sensor networks are becoming more and more considered for application in real world systems such as automation control, critical infrastructure protection and the like. By going wireless these systems are no longer to be protected by fences and walls but need to take into account security of all their components. In this paper we discuss two alternatives for implementing isolation on a Micro Controller Unit (MCU). The first one is a pure software solution, i.e. a Hypervisor which comes with a reasonable performance penalty when applied for 16-bit RISC processor cores such as the TI MSP430. Since it is a pure software solution it can be applied to existing MCUs without any hardware modification. Our second approach is to use a Memory Protection Unit (MPU) realized in hardware, which is placed between the processing core and the resources of the sensor node. The MPU especially supports fine-grained isolation of the sensor node software and further reduces the performance penal
ty compared to the pure software solution.
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