A Multi-Party Authentication Key Agreement Scheme for Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks

To address authentication and key negotiation challenges in underwater acoustic sensor networks (UASNs) in the post-quantum era, a Multi-party Authentication Key Agreement scheme coined as MAKA is proposed. MAKA performs Gaussian sampling on the NTRU lattice combined with environmental factors to generate the private key. Moreover, the session key is encrypted by noise polynomial under the Peikert error reconciliation. On this basis, a ring learning with errors (RLWE)-based multi-party key agreement mechanism is designed, which facilitates anonymous authentication and enhances network collaboration efficiency. By formal proofs and simulations, the MAKA scheme achieves superior security and execution efficiency in UASNs.