Open Access

ARTICLE

Secure Communication in Wireless Sensor Networks Using Ascon Lightweight Cryptography

Kuldashbay Avazov¹, Jasur Sevinov^2,3, Komil Tashev⁴, Jamila Arzieva⁵, Tulkin Botirov⁶, Alpamis Kutlimuratov⁷, Akmalbek Abdusalomov^{2,4,8,9,10,11}, Boburjon Vafoev¹², Young Im Cho^1,*

1 Department of Computer Engineering, Gachon University, Seongnam, Republic of Korea
2 Department of Information Processing and Control Systems, Tashkent State Technical University, Tashkent, Uzbekistan
3 Department of Computer Engineering, University of Tashkent for Applied Sciences, Tashkent, Uzbekistan
4 Department of Computer Systems, Tashkent University of Information Technologies Named after Muhammad Al-Khwarizmi, Tashkent, Uzbekistan
5 Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, Karakalpak State University, Nukus, Uzbekistan
6 Department of Automation and Control, Navoi State University of Mining and Technologies, Navoi, Uzbekistan
7 Department of Applied Informatics, Kimyo International University in Tashkent, Tashkent, Uzbekistan
8 Department of International Scientific Journals and Rankings, Alfraganus University, Tashkent, Uzbekistan
9 Department of Digital Technologies and Mathematics, Kokand University, Kokand, Uzbekistan
10 Department of Computer Engineering, Balıkesir University, Balıkesir, Türkiye
11 Department of Software Engineering, Samarkand State University, Samarkand, Uzbekistan
12 Department of Digital Economy, Tashkent State University of Economics, Tashkent, Uzbekistan

* Corresponding Author: Young Im Cho. Email:

Computers, Materials & Continua 2026, 89(2), 75 https://doi.org/10.32604/cmc.2026.087927

Received 29 June 2026; Accepted 17 August 2026; Issue published 15 September 2026

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) and Internet of Things (IoT) systems require lightweight cryptographic primitives that provide strong security under strict constraints on area, latency, and timing predictability. Ascon, selected by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as the standard for lightweight authenticated encryption, is well suited for such environments, yet application-oriented hardware implementations for WSN platforms remain underexplored. This paper presents a comprehensive evaluation of field programmable gate array (FPGA)-based Ascon architectures for secure WSN and IoT deployments, using iterative design with single permutation round and hybrid design with two-round unrolling across two FPGA classes. Implementations on Kintex UltraScale and Artix-7 devices achieve sub-microsecond deterministic latency, operating frequencies up to 273 MHz, and throughput (TP) between 300 and 620 Mbps, with resource usage as low as 1794 look-up tables (LUTs). A detailed hardware-to-hardware comparison with existing FPGA and application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) implementations demonstrates the efficiency and design-space positioning of the proposed architectures. Application-level analysis, based on full multi-block cycle counts for 128-byte WSN-typical packets, shows support for hundreds of thousands of encrypted packets per second, exceeding the requirements of practical sensor-network workloads. The measured sub-microsecond latency and high TP demonstrate that the proposed architectures are well aligned with the performance and timing requirements of practical WSN and IoT deployments.

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