Effect of channel impairments on radiometric fingerprinting

Abstract

To increase network security and mitigate identity theft attacks, much of the research is focused on traditional bit-level algorithmic. In conventional wireless networks, security issues are primarily considered above the physical layer and are usually based on bit-level 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 Radiometric fingerprinting has shown that every transmitter has a unique fingerprint owing to imperfections in the analog components present in the RF front end. However, to the best of the author’s knowledge, no such example is available in the literature in which the effect of radio channel on Radiometric fingerprint is evaluated. This paper presents the simulation and experimental results for radiometric fingerprinting under an indoor varying radio channel. Contrary to popular assumption, it was found that the fingerprinting accuracy is little affected in an indoor channel environment.