A Survey on Wireless Security: Technical Challenges, Recent Advances and Future Trends

This paper examines the security vulnerabilities and threats imposed by the inherent open nature of wireless communications and to devise efficient defense mechanisms for improving the wireless network security. We first summarize the security requirements of wireless networks, including their authenticity, confidentiality, integrity and availability issues. Next, a comprehensive overview of security attacks encountered in wireless networks is presented in view of the network protocol architecture, where the potential security threats are discussed at each protocol layer. We also provide a survey of the existing security protocols and algorithms that are adopted in the existing wireless network standards, such as the Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, WiMAX, and the long-term evolution (LTE) systems. Then, we discuss the state-of-the-art in physical-layer security, which is an emerging technique of securing the open communications environment against eavesdropping attacks at the physical layer. We also introduce the family of various jamming attacks and their counter-measures, including the constant jammer, intermittent jammer, reactive jammer, adaptive jammer and intelligent jammer. Additionally, we discuss the integration of physical-layer security into existing authentication and cryptography mechanisms for further securing wireless networks. Finally, some technical challenges which remain unresolved at the time of writing are summarized and the future trends in wireless security are discussed.Comment: 36 pages. Accepted to Appear in Proceedings of the IEEE, 201

Architectures and synchronization techniques for distributed satellite systems: a survey

Cohesive Distributed Satellite Systems (CDSSs) is a key enabling technology for the future of remote sensing and communication missions. However, they have to meet strict synchronization requirements before their use is generalized. When clock or local oscillator signals are generated locally at each of the distributed nodes, achieving exact synchronization in absolute phase, frequency, and time is a complex problem. In addition, satellite systems have significant resource constraints, especially for small satellites, which are envisioned to be part of the future CDSSs. Thus, the development of precise, robust, and resource-efficient synchronization techniques is essential for the advancement of future CDSSs. In this context, this survey aims to summarize and categorize the most relevant results on synchronization techniques for Distributed Satellite Systems (DSSs). First, some important architecture and system concepts are defined. Then, the synchronization methods reported in the literature are reviewed and categorized. This article also provides an extensive list of applications and examples of synchronization techniques for DSSs in addition to the most significant advances in other operations closely related to synchronization, such as inter-satellite ranging and relative position. The survey also provides a discussion on emerging data-driven synchronization techniques based on Machine Learning (ML). Finally, a compilation of current research activities and potential research topics is proposed, identifying problems and open challenges that can be useful for researchers in the field.This work was supported by the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR), through the CORE Project COHEsive SATellite (COHESAT): Cognitive Cohesive Networks of Distributed Units for Active and Passive Space Applications, under Grant FNR11689919.Award-winningPostprint (published version

Performance assessment of wireless Two Way Relay Channel systems

The objective of this thesis is theoretical investigations and numerical simulations of Two Way Relay Channel (TWRC) systems, particularly in an impulsive noise environment. Special attention is given to investigation of a TWRC system based on polarized antennas. The first part of the thesis focuses on modelling of impulsive noise and the effect of impulsive noise on TWRC systems. The study was conducted by simulating the wireless TWRC models in the presence of impulsive noise. The bit error probability performance of the channel data was compared and at last their results are shown by graphs. The study has been further extended to multi antenna TWRC systems. Simulation analysis of multi antenna TWRC systems in an impulsive noise environment was conducted by using a MISO Alamouti scheme and a MIMO system. The second part of the thesis dedicated to investigation of TWRC polarization systems. A new TWRC scheme based on polarized antennas has been proposed and simulated. By polarization we are able to achieve higher spectral efficiency through the use of spatial multiplexing, and improve the reliability by spatial diversity. A new network topology based on TWRC polarization systems proposed. It is well suited to mitigate effect of delay in a communication system, particularly for high priority data transmission, or increase reliability of a communication system by redundant transmission

Integrated Satellite-terrestrial networks for IoT: LoRaWAN as a Flying Gateway

When the Internet of Things (IoT) was introduced, it causes an immense change in human life. Recently, different IoT emerging use cases, which will involve an even higher number of connected devices aimed at collecting and sending data with different purposes and over different application scenarios, such as smart city, smart factory, and smart agriculture. In some cases, the terrestrial infrastructure is not enough to guarantee the typical performance indicators due to its design and intrinsic limitations. Coverage is an example, where the terrestrial infrastructure is not able to cover certain areas such as remote and rural areas. Flying technologies, such as communication satellites and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), can contribute to overcome the limitations of the terrestrial infrastructure, offering wider coverage, higher resilience and availability, and improving user\u2019s Quality of Experience (QoE). IoT can benefit from the UAVs and satellite integration in many ways, also beyond the coverage extension and the increase of the available bandwidth that these objects can offer. This thesis proposes the integration of both IoT and UAVs to guarantee the increased coverage in hard to reach and out of coverage areas. Its core focus addresses the development of the IoT flying gateway and data mule and testing both approaches to show their feasibility. The first approach for the integration of IoT and UAV results in the implementing of LoRa flying gateway with the aim of increasing the IoT communication protocols\u2019 coverage area to reach remote and rural areas. This flying gateway examines the feasibility for extending the coverage in a remote area and transmitting the data to the IoT cloud in real-time. Moreover, it considers the presence of a satellite between the gateway and the final destination for areas with no Internet connectivity and communication means such as WiFi, Ethernet, 4G, or LTE. The experimental results have shown that deploying a LoRa gateway on board a flying drone is an ideal option for the extension of the IoT network coverage in rural and remote areas. The second approach for the integration of the aforementioned technologies is the deployment of IoT data mule concept for LoRa networks. The difference here is the storage of the data on board of the gateway and not transmitting the data to the IoT cloud in real time. The aim of this approach is to receive the data from the LoRa sensors installed in a remote area, store them in the gateway up until this flying gateway is connected to the Internet. The experimental results have shown the feasibility of our flying data mule in terms of signal quality, data delivery, power consumption and gateway status. The third approach considers the security aspect in LoRa networks. The possible physical attacks that can be performed on any LoRa device can be performed once its location is revealed. Position estimation was carried out using one of the LoRa signal features: RSSI. The values of RSSI are fed to the Trilateration localization algorithm to estimate the device\u2019s position. Different outdoor tests were done with and without the drone, and the results have shown that RSSI is a low cost option for position estimation that can result in a slight error due to different environmental conditions that affect the signal quality. In conclusion, by adopting both IoT technology and UAV, this thesis advances the development of flying LoRa gateway and LoRa data mule for the aim of increasing the coverage of LoRa networks to reach rural and remote areas. Moreover, this research could be considered as the first step towards the development of high quality and performance LoRa flying gateway to be tested and used in massive LoRa IoT networks in rural and remote areas

Narrowband interference rejection studies for Galileo signals via Simulink

Four Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) are scheduled to be fully operational orbiting the Earth in the coming years. A considerably high number of signals, coming from each of the satellites that will constitute those constellations, will share the radio electric spectrum. Aeronautical Radio Navigation Systems (ARNS) share the E5 Galileo band. Examples of ARNS are Distance Measuring Equipment (DME) and Tactical Air Navigation system (TACAN). It should also be mentioned that electronic attacks (jamming or spoofing) have always been a latent threat for satellite services. All of this are important interference sources which can partially or completely disable a GNSS system. These interferences must be, and are currently being studied together with interference mitigation methods. The aim of the work presented in this thesis is to study the narrowband interference effects in Galileo E5 band and to assess three mitigation techniques against two types of narrowband interferences, Continuous Wave Interference (CWI) and DME signals. Cancellation techniques can be classified into two major groups: time-domain approaches and frequency-domain approaches. Methods that combine time and frequency together are also given in the literature (e.g. cyclostationarity-based methods) but their implementations are very costly with high sampling rates as those used for example in Galileo E5 signals. The mitigation techniques that are addressed in this thesis are zeroing, dynamic notch filtering and blanking pulse methods. All of them can be understood as filtering techniques that remove any signal above a certain threshold. This thesis shows that zeroing is more suitable for CWI and blanking is better against DME signals. These techniques have been developed within a Matlab-Simulink based simulator initiated in 2007 at Tampere University of Technology. The implemented simulator could be a great help tool for future research and development projects

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationThe wireless radio channel is typically thought of as a means to move information from transmitter to receiver, but the radio channel can also be used to detect changes in the environment of the radio link. This dissertation is focused on the measurements we can make at the physical layer of wireless networks, and how we can use those measurements to obtain information about the locations of transceivers and people. The first contribution of this work is the development and testing of an open source, 802.11b sounder and receiver, which is capable of decoding packets and using them to estimate the channel impulse response (CIR) of a radio link at a fraction of the cost of traditional channel sounders. This receiver improves on previous implementations by performing optimized matched filtering on the field-programmable gate array (FPGA) of the Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP), allowing it to operate at full bandwidth. The second contribution of this work is an extensive experimental evaluation of a technology called location distinction, i.e., the ability to identify changes in radio transceiver position, via CIR measurements. Previous location distinction work has focused on single-input single-output (SISO) radio links. We extend this work to the context of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radio links, and study system design trade-offs which affect the performance of MIMO location distinction. The third contribution of this work introduces the "exploiting radio windows" (ERW) attack, in which an attacker outside of a building surreptitiously uses the transmissions of an otherwise secure wireless network inside of the building to infer location information about people inside the building. This is possible because of the relative transparency of external walls to radio transmissions. The final contribution of this dissertation is a feasibility study for building a rapidly deployable radio tomographic (RTI) imaging system for special operations forces (SOF). We show that it is possible to obtain valuable tracking information using as few as 10 radios over a single floor of a typical suburban home, even without precise radio location measurements

Architectures and Synchronization Techniques for Distributed Satellite Systems: A Survey

Cohesive Distributed Satellite Systems (CDSSs) is a key enabling technology for the future of remote sensing and communication missions. However, they have to meet strict synchronization requirements before their use is generalized. When clock or local oscillator signals are generated locally at each of the distributed nodes, achieving exact synchronization in absolute phase, frequency, and time is a complex problem. In addition, satellite systems have significant resource constraints, especially for small satellites, which are envisioned to be part of the future CDSSs. Thus, the development of precise, robust, and resource-efficient synchronization techniques is essential for the advancement of future CDSSs. In this context, this survey aims to summarize and categorize the most relevant results on synchronization techniques for Distributed Satellite Systems (DSSs). First, some important architecture and system concepts are defined. Then, the synchronization methods reported in the literature are reviewed and categorized. This article also provides an extensive list of applications and examples of synchronization techniques for DSSs in addition to the most significant advances in other operations closely related to synchronization, such as inter-satellite ranging and relative position. The survey also provides a discussion on emerging data-driven synchronization techniques based on Machine Learning (ML). Finally, a compilation of current research activities and potential research topics is proposed, identifying problems and open challenges that can be useful for researchers in the field

Secure OFDM System Design for Wireless Communications

Wireless communications is widely employed in modern society and plays an increasingly important role in people\u27s daily life. The broadcast nature of radio propagation, however, causes wireless communications particularly vulnerable to malicious attacks, and leads to critical challenges in securing the wireless transmission. Motivated by the insufficiency of traditional approaches to secure wireless communications, physical layer security that is emerging as a complement to the traditional upper-layer security mechanisms is investigated in this dissertation. Five novel techniques toward the physical layer security of wireless communications are proposed. The first two techniques focus on the security risk assessment in wireless networks to enable a situation-awareness based transmission protection. The third and fourth techniques utilize wireless medium characteristics to enhance the built-in security of wireless communication systems, so as to prevent passive eavesdropping. The last technique provides an embedded confidential signaling link for secure transmitter-receiver interaction in OFDM systems

Positioning systems using families of binary sequences with low correlation

RESUMEN: El objetivo de este trabajo es el estudio de la aplicación de familias de secuencias binarias de baja correlación para su uso en sistemas de posicionamiento en tiempo real en interiores como por ejemplo en entornos industriales o de almacenamiento. Actualmente es un problemas abierto para el que se han propuesto distintas tecnologías como sistemas basados en visión artificial o en redes de sensores entre otros. En este proyecto se ha implementado un sistema de posicionamiento en interiores de bajos recursos por medio de secuencias binarias de baja correlación. La investigación se ha centrado en la revisión de las tecnologías existentes en el mercado, la búsqueda de las secuencias binarias más apropiadas y el estudio de sus propiedades. Siguiendo el modelo GPS como sistema de localización en exteriores, se ha construido un propotipo basado en placas Arduino. Nuestra propuesta codifica la información mediante secuencias Pseudo Noise, códigos Gold y Kasami. Posteriormente estas secuencias son transmitidas utilizando señales de ultrasonido. En el receptor, las señales recibidas se pueden procesar para obtener medidas como la distancia entre dispositivos y el ángulo de llegada entre otras.ABSTRACT: The aim of this project is the study of families of binary sequences of low correlation and its application to real-time indoor positioning systems in industrial or warehousing environments. Many different approaches based on different technologies such as artificial vision or sensor networks have been proposed for indoor localization but it still remains an open problem. In this work, we have implemented a low resources indoor positioning system over over a embedded system, that uses binary sequences of low correlation. The research has focused on existent technologies in the market, on the search of the most appropriate family of sequences and the study of their properties. Taking GPS as a reference model for outdoor localization, we have built a prototype based on Arduino boards. Our approach encodes messages with Pseudo Noise sequences, Gold and Kasami Codes. Afterwards, the sequences are transmitted as ultrasonic signals. Then, the receiver processes the incoming signal to obtain measures such as the distances between devices and the angle of arrival of the signal.Máster en Matemáticas y Computació

An ad hoc wireless mobile communications model for Special Operations Forces

The digitization of the battlefield enables special operators to use improved communications supported by computer networks across a range of missions. The communications paradigm is evolving toward mobile wireless ad hoc networks. This development enables an autonomous system of mobile nodes supporting peer-to-peer communications in forward-deployed military networks. Ad hoc networks have to establish a reliable, secure, instant, and usually temporary, communication infrastructure and to be able to access in a global communications infrastructure. Our model describes a global communication network supporting the special operator in mobile wireless communications. The main purpose is to provide a handheld wireless communications node which is capable of transferring voice, data, and imagery to and from parallel and vertical command structures within an environment replete with electronic countermeasures. The model will support the representation of requirements such as throughput, quality of service with low power consumption, and low probability of detection/interception. Special Forces are moving toward using commercial-off-the- shelf products and services based on availability and cost effectiveness. Using GloMoSim tool, we run simulations for a direct action scenario and compared the efficiency of on-demand and table-driven routing protocols under different bandwidths and communications loadshttp://www.archive.org/details/adhocwirelessmob00ogutFirst Lieutenant, Turkish ArmyApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited