RF fingerprinting : research opportunities

Radio Frequency (RF) fingerprinting aims to de- velop a unique identity for a wireless device that can be used in the same way a biological fingerprint operates, to improve the security and privacy of wireless communication. This is in contrast to the traditional bit-level algorithmic approaches to securing transmissions. In this letter, we introduce RF finger- printing, and a comprehensive overview of research challenges and opportunities associated with its deployment in low-cost portable mobile devices

Effect of channel impairments on the performance of RF Fingerprinting using low-end receivers

Radio Frequency (RF) Fingerprinting Problem definition Objective Experiment setup Results Conclusion Radio fingerprinting is the process of identifying a radio transmitter by the unique characteristics present in its signal. This unique characteristics are due to the imperfections of the analog components present in the transmitter chain.These active and passive components present in the transmitter chain contribute to a unique radio fingerprint. A transmitter can be identified by these unique characteristics. The results so far has investigated the impact of transmitter but no one has considered the impairments of the receiver. As receivers front-end is also made up of low noise amplifier, oscillators, mixer and filters etc. Therefore, they also have an effect on accuracy. This paper has performed experiments with multiple low-end receivers in order to cross validate our findings. In this paper, low end means inexpensive receivers built with off the shelf components

Other-cells Interference in CDMA systems

Using simulation and modelling, the other-cells interference factor for CDMA systems is obtained. Situations with tiers of neighbouring cells are investigated under various propagation parameters and for two scenarios, when the mobile chooses the nearest base station, and when it chooses the base station with the strongest signal as home cell. The results presented indicate that in most situations the other-cells interference factor can be significantly less than the upper bounds result published previously. It is concluded that it is enough to compare the link attenuation of three neighbouring cells to find the home cell

Angular independent frequency selective surfaces for interference control in indoor wireless environments

A study of electromagnetic wave propagation in buildings using a finite-difference time-domain algorithm has demonstrated that waves are incident on walls over a wide range of angles. If wall mounted frequency selective shielding is desired, it is argued that this behaviour requires shielding solutions that are angle insensitive. A simple single-layer annular ring frequency selective surface (which is relatively economic to fabricate) is shown to offer adequate angular stability of the transmission response, and is thus suitable for electromagnetic interference control in indoor wireless environment

Portability of an RF fingerprint of a wireless transmitter

In conventional wireless networks, security issues are primarily considered above the physical layer and are usually based on bitlevel algorithms to establish the identity of a legitimate wireless device. Physical layer security is a new paradigm in which features extracted from an analog signal can be used to establish the unique identity of a transmitter. Our previous research work into RF fingerprinting has shown that every transmitter has a unique RF fingerprint owing to imperfections in the analog components present in the RF front end. Generally, it is believed that the RF fingerprint of a specific transmitter is same across all receivers. That is, a fingerprint created in one receiver can be transported to another receiver to establish the identity of a transmitter. However, to the best of the author’s knowledge, no such example is available in the literature in which an RF fingerprint generated in one receiver is used for identification in other receivers. This paper presents the results of experiments, and analyzing the feasibility of using an universal RF fingerprint of a transmitter for identification across different receivers

Frequency Selectively Screened Office incorporating Convoluted FSS Window

The frequency selectivity of small single and double layer FSS windows built into an office enclosure and employing highly miniaturised interwoven array elements is assessed across the frequency range from 200 MHz to 2 GHz. The aim of providing an emergency services passband at about 400 MHz while providing isolation of at least 15 dB above 600 MHz is achieved