## 4 The Proposed Method: SLP-E
### Protocol Execution Phase
#### 4.2.2 Scenario-2
When compared to the existing SLP solutions, SLP-E shows improvement in the safety period by 26.5%, 97%, 123%, and 15.7 in the SLP-R, SRR, PRLPRW, and PSSLP techniques, respectively. Similar to this, the NLT of SLP-E shows improvement by 17%, 0.2%, 83%, and 13% in the SLP-R, SRR, PRLPRW, and PSSLP techniques, respectively. When we examine these data, it is evident that the suggested method performs better than the existing ones in both the safety period and network lifetime metrics. In addition, contrary to prior solutions where privacy strength is distance-dependent, the proposed technique demonstrates consistent privacy and network lifetime levels for any position of the source in the network. Therefore, the suggested approach achieves its main objectives of offering an improved safety period and NLT while maintaining uniform privacy levels. * The proposed scheme's (SLP-E) performance is compared to the existing schemes in terms of safety period, as illustrated in Figure 6. In configuring the simulation environment, we position the source nodes as follows: (200, 0), (550, 0), (900, 0), and (1050, 0). Notably, SLP-E outperforms existing SLP schemes in terms of safety period, and regardless of the source node's location within the network, SLP-E consistently maintains a high level of privacy. This attribute of SLP-E is a result of its ability to adapt the routing protocol based on the source's position within the network. * It is seen that the proposed scheme performs equally well along with the SRR technique concerning network lifetime (NLT), when compared to other existing solutions. Nevertheless, our findings demonstrate that, on average, SLP-E achieves superior NLT performance in comparison to SRR. Notably, NLT in SLP-E remains consistently high across various network settings, as depicted in Figure 11. The suggested strategy remains the optimal choice for consistently achieving improved safety period and network lifetime (NLT). * This study has additionally conducted a thorough analysis of the impact of sensor nodes' radio range on various performance metrics of SLP. In order to gain a comprehensive understanding of how the proposed protocol (SLP-E) behaves under varying radio range settings, we conducted tests with the following radio ranges: 72, 77, 82, 87, 92, and 97. It becomes evident that radio range size has noticeable effects on the safety period, capture ratio, and network lifetime metrics. Further, it has been noted that increased delays are required to obtain a safety period enhancement; this is considered as a limitation of this scheme. Despite the fact that these two metrics are trade-offs, future work can focus on improving SLP protection methods that take advantage of the optimization approach to reduce packet transmission latency. By using q-learning principles from the machine learning field, we intend to investigate multi-objective optimization of safety period, network life, energy consumption, and delay in the future. Methodology, F.M. and R.M., Software, T.K., Validation, F.M., Formal analysis, R.M. and T.K., Investigation, F.M. and R.M., Writing original draft, F.M., Writing review and editing, F.M., R.M., R.D. and D.H., Visualization, F.M., Supervision, R.D., D.H. and M.D. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript. This research is funded by University of Rwanda, African Center of Excellence in Internet of Things (ACE-IoT). Not applicable. Data Availability StatementData are contained within the article. The authors declare no conflict of interest. ## References

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