Authentication is the process where claims of identity are verified. Most mechanisms of authentication (e.g., digital signatures and certificates) exist above the physical layer, though some (e.g., spread spectrum communications) exist at the physical layer often with an additional cost in bandwidth. We introduce a general analysis and design framework for authentication at the physical layer where the authentication information is transmitted concurrently with the data. By superimposing a carefully designed secret modulation on the waveforms, authentication is added to the signal without requiring additional bandwidth, as do spread spectrum methods. The authentication is designed to be stealthy to the uninformed user, robust to interference, and secure for identity verification. The tradeoffs between these three goals are identified and analyzed in block fading channels. We describe further extensions to OFDM and multicarrier wireless devices. Finally, both simulation results and experimental results from laboratory implementation of these new schemes are given that demonstrate the potential of this new authentication technique.
John S. Baras, Lockheed Martin Chair in Systems Engineering
B.S. in Electrical Eng. from the Nat. Techn. Univ. of Athens, Greece, 1970; M.S. and Ph.D. in Applied Math. from Harvard Univ. 1971, 1973. Since 1973 with the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, and the Applied Mathematics Faculty, at the University of Maryland College Park. Faculty member in the Department of Computer Science and Fischell Department of Bioengineering. He was the founding Director of the Institute for Systems Research (ISR) from 1985 to 1991. Since 1991, has been the Director of the Maryland Center for Hybrid Networks (HYNET). Fellow of the IEEE and a Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences. Received the 1980 George Axelby Prize from the IEEE Control Systems Society and the 2006 Leonard Abraham Prize from the IEEE Communications Society. Professor Baras' research interests include control, communication and computing systems.
Email: baras@isr.umd.edu, Web page: http://www.isr.umd.edu/~baras/