Comparative performance analysis of hardware and software AES encryption implementation in WSN
Ljubomir Vracar, Milan Stojanovic · Facta universitatis - series Electronics and Energetics · 2025
Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have been among the most researched areas in the last ten or twenty years. Different sensor technologies and wireless communication contributed to the progress in this field, but two features of these systems are still insufficiently developed. These are data security and energy consumption. Data is particularly vulnerable during transmission, whether it is communication between nodes or between a base station and a server. One of the most promising solutions for this problem is data encryption. However, data encryption negatively affects sensor nodes' energy consumption, so there is a compromise between data security and energy consumption. Symmetric encryption algorithms are more effective than asymmetric for these applications. Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is the most frequently used symmetric algorithm. This paper analyzes the performance of hardware and software implementation of the AES encryption algorithm on the sensor node. The hardware implementation is based on the integrated circuit ATECC608A, while the microcontroller firmware includes the software implementation. The analyzed parameters include execution time, energy consumption, and memory usage, for four working frequencies (8 MHz, 16 MHz, 32 MHz, and 64 MHz), and different supply voltages (2.6 V, 3.3 V, and 5 V). The results show that the hardware implementation works faster for the lower working frequency (up to 12 MHz). The execution time of software implementation is reduced approximately 50 % with doubled frequency, while the reduction is less, and inconstant in hardware implementation. The hardware implementation consumes more energy that software, and the difference rises with the working frequency. These differences are 20 %, 40 %, 60 %, and 75 % at the same frequencies considered for execution time analyzing. The hardware implementation occupies 4.58 % of the memory of the microcontroller (PIC18F45K22), while 10.13 % is needed for the software implementation. These results can provide a good starting point for choosing an appropriate encryption implementation method.