Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

International Conference on Communications (COMM)

Public discussion strategies for secret key generation from sampled IR-UWB channel responses

Iulia Tunaru, Benoît Denis, Bernard Uguen

Published May 1, 2014• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

The generation of symmetric keys using physical layer measurements (e.g. received signal strength, channel responses etc.) is based on the reciprocity property of wireless channels. However, noise or other transmission artifacts can degrade the link reciprocity and lead to bit mismatching between legitimate users. One of the challenges of this new key management paradigm is to obtain as many identical bits as possible, while guaranteeing good secrecy of the public exchanges that allow the bit correction. Previous studies have provided a proof of concept for exploiting oversampled ultra wideband signals to generate secret keys with practical lengths. In order to improve the security of such schemes with respect to a nearby passive attacker with correlated channel observations, we propose public discussion alternatives including one strategy based on the signal time of flight (ToF). We show that these alternatives can reduce the advantage that such an attacker can have in terms of bit agreement between the legitimate keys and his guess.

DOI
10.1109/iccomm.2014.6866691

Related papers

Experimental channel-based secret key generation with integrated ultra wideband devices

M Bulenok, Iulia Tunaru, Lionel Biard +2 more

In wireless decentralized networks, security and privacy become more challenging due to stringent architecture and sometimes low-complexity constraints. Confidentiality of the transmissions is usually achieved by symmetric cryptography, which implies the distribution of identical secret keys to the legitimate nodes. Classical solutions for symmetric key distribution can be too complex from a computational or infrastructural point of view. An alternative would be physical layer key generation, which exploits the radio channel as a source of common information. This paper looks into the generation of secret keys from Impulse Radio - Ultra Wideband (IR-UWB) channels using low-power integrated devices. We investigate the possibility to generate identical secret bit sequences in practical environments (e.g., possibly occupied indoor rooms) and operating conditions (e.g., mobility) under specific hardware limitations inherent to device integration (e.g., time resolution and signal dynamics). The main challenge is to obtain reciprocal and random bits at an acceptable rate. Taking into account these three criteria (i.e., reciprocity, randomness, and key length), we describe and evaluate a new quantization scheme adapted to the channel impulse responses acquired by real devices.

IEEE International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC)•Sep 1, 2016•12 citations

Robust Physical-Layer Key Generation Using UWB in Industrial IoT: A Measurement-Based Analysis

Lorenzo Mario Amorosa, Stefano Caputo, Lorenzo Mucchi +1 more

This paper addresses the confidentiality of wireless communications in industrial internet-of-things environments by investigating the feasibility of secret key generation for link-layer encryption using ultra wideband (UWB) signals. Taking advantage of the nanosecond-level temporal resolution offered by ultra wideband, we exploit channel reciprocity to extract highly detailed, noise-like channel measurements, in line with the physical-layer security paradigm. Three key generation algorithms, operating in both the time and frequency domains, are evaluated using real-world data collected through a dedicated measurement campaign in an industrial setting. The analysis, conducted under realistic conditions, examines the impact of practical impairments, such as imperfect channel reciprocity and timing misalignments, on the key agreement rate and the length of the generated keys. The results confirm the strong potential of ultra wideband technology to enable robust physical-layer security, offering a viable and efficient solution for securing wireless communications in complex and dynamic industrial internet-of-things environments.

Journal of Sensor and Actuator Networks•Dec 23, 2025•0 citations

Secret Key Generation and Agreement in UWB Communication Channels

Masoud Ghoreishi Madiseh, Michael L. McGuire, Stephen S. Neville +2 more

It has been shown that the radio channel impulse response for a pair of legitimate Ultra-wide band (UWB) transceivers can be used to generate secret keys for secure communications. Past proposed secret key generation algorithms under-exploited the available number of secret key bits from the radio channel. This paper proposes a new efficient method for generation of the shared key where the transceivers use LDPC decoders to resolve the differences in their channel impulse response measurements caused by measurement noise. To ensure secret key agreement, a method of public discussion between the two users is performed using the syndrome from Hamming (7,3) binary codes. An algorithm is proposed to check the equality of generated keys for both legitimate users, and ensure error-free secure communication. The security of this algorithm has been verified by AVISPA. Comparisons are performed with previous work on secret key generation and it has been shown that this algorithm reliably generates longer secret keys in standard UWB radio channels.

Globecom•Jan 1, 2008•53 citations

Secret Key Generation Using Reciprocity in Ultra-wideband Outdoor Wireless Channels

Jing Huang, Ting Jiang

To investigate schemes of secret key generation from Ultra-wideband (UWB) channel, we study a statistical characterization of UWB outdoor channel for a campus playground scenario based on extensive measurements.Moreover, an efficient secret key generation mechanism exploiting multipath relative delay is developed, and verification of this algorithm is conducted in UWB Line-of-sight (LOS) outdoor channels.For the first time, we compare key-mismatch probability of UWB indoor and outdoor environments.Simulation results demonstrate that the number of multipath proportionally affects key generation rate and key-mismatch probability.In comparison to the conventional method using received signal strength (RSS) as a common random source, our mechanism achieves better performance in terms of common secret bit generation.Simultaneously, security analysis indicates that the proposed scheme can still guarantee security even in the sparse outdoor physical environment free of many reflectors.

KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems•Feb 28, 2014•1 citation

Reciprocity-diversity trade-off in quantization for secret key generation

Iulia Tunaru, Benoît Denis, Bernard Uguen

Symmetric secret key generation from physical layer measurements has recently emerged as an alternative to computationally secure protocols or predistribution techniques for key sharing. This new approach takes advantage of the intrinsic properties of radio channels (e.g. reciprocity and spatial decorrelation) by quantizing measurable channel characteristics into a suite of codewords. However, noise or other transmission artifacts can degrade the link reciprocity and lead to bit errors between the users' codewords, which are strongly related to the quantization thresholds. In this paper, we present a framework for quantization in the context of key generation. In order to find a trade-off between reciprocity (an indicator of robustness) and codeword diversity (an indicator of randomness) under a fixed-length constraint, we investigate the non-uniform quantization and we show the interest of optimizing the quantization thresholds as a function of the signal-to-noise ratio.

IEEE International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC)•Sep 1, 2014•2 citations

A Lightweight CIR-Based Physical Layer Key Generation Scheme for UWB

Eshagh Dehmollaian, Bernhard Etzlinger, Andreas Springer

The constraints imposed by the computational and energy capabilities of Internet of Things (IoT) devices are challenging for ensuring secure communication between these devices. One promising solution to address these security challenges is leveraging Physical Layer Security (PHYSEC) principles. This paper investigates in the area of PHYSEC, particularly focusing on the utilization of channel reciprocity for generating a secret key, commonly referred to as Physical Layer Secret Key Generation (PSKG), in Ultra-Wideband (UWB) technology. PSKG usually contain an Information Reconciliation (IR) stage to improve the probability for identical keys, which comes with substantial computational and communication cost. The primary objective of this paper is to eliminate this IR stage and its associated costs while still achieving a high probability for identical keys. To accomplish this goal, we propose a Pre-Processing (PP) stage involving a Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT)-based approach. This approach extracts reciprocal randomness from the Channel Impulse Response (CIR). By exploiting the CIR and our proposed PP stage, we were able to slightly improve the key generation rate while reducing the probability of successful attacks by a significant 87% in dynamic environments compared to the state-of-the-art. Notably, our approach does not require a training phase, making it more efficient for IoT devices.

IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference•Apr 21, 2024•6 citations
The generation of symmetric keys using physical layer measurements (e.g. received signal strength, channel responses etc.) is based on the reciprocity property of wireless channels. However, noise or other transmission artifacts can degrade the link reciprocity and lead to bit mismatching between legitimate users. One of the challenges of this new key management paradigm is to obtain as many identical bits as possible, while guaranteeing good secrecy of the public exchanges that allow the bit correction. Previous studies have provided a proof of concept for exploiting oversampled ultra wideband signals to generate secret keys with practical lengths. In order to improve the security of such schemes with respect to a nearby passive attacker with correlated channel observations, we propose public discussion alternatives including one strategy based on the signal time of flight (ToF). We show that these alternatives can reduce the advantage that such an attacker can have in terms of bit agreement between the legitimate keys and his guess.
In wireless decentralized networks, security and privacy become more challenging due to stringent architecture and sometimes low-complexity constraints. Confidentiality of the transmissions is usually achieved by symmetric cryptography, which implies the distribution of identical secret keys to the legitimate nodes. Classical solutions for symmetric key distribution can be too complex from a computational or infrastructural point of view. An alternative would be physical layer key generation, which exploits the radio channel as a source of common information. This paper looks into the generation of secret keys from Impulse Radio - Ultra Wideband (IR-UWB) channels using low-power integrated devices. We investigate the possibility to generate identical secret bit sequences in practical environments (e.g., possibly occupied indoor rooms) and operating conditions (e.g., mobility) under specific hardware limitations inherent to device integration (e.g., time resolution and signal dynamics). The main challenge is to obtain reciprocal and random bits at an acceptable rate. Taking into account these three criteria (i.e., reciprocity, randomness, and key length), we describe and evaluate a new quantization scheme adapted to the channel impulse responses acquired by real devices.
This paper addresses the confidentiality of wireless communications in industrial internet-of-things environments by investigating the feasibility of secret key generation for link-layer encryption using ultra wideband (UWB) signals. Taking advantage of the nanosecond-level temporal resolution offered by ultra wideband, we exploit channel reciprocity to extract highly detailed, noise-like channel measurements, in line with the physical-layer security paradigm. Three key generation algorithms, operating in both the time and frequency domains, are evaluated using real-world data collected through a dedicated measurement campaign in an industrial setting. The analysis, conducted under realistic conditions, examines the impact of practical impairments, such as imperfect channel reciprocity and timing misalignments, on the key agreement rate and the length of the generated keys. The results confirm the strong potential of ultra wideband technology to enable robust physical-layer security, offering a viable and efficient solution for securing wireless communications in complex and dynamic industrial internet-of-things environments.
It has been shown that the radio channel impulse response for a pair of legitimate Ultra-wide band (UWB) transceivers can be used to generate secret keys for secure communications. Past proposed secret key generation algorithms under-exploited the available number of secret key bits from the radio channel. This paper proposes a new efficient method for generation of the shared key where the transceivers use LDPC decoders to resolve the differences in their channel impulse response measurements caused by measurement noise. To ensure secret key agreement, a method of public discussion between the two users is performed using the syndrome from Hamming (7,3) binary codes. An algorithm is proposed to check the equality of generated keys for both legitimate users, and ensure error-free secure communication. The security of this algorithm has been verified by AVISPA. Comparisons are performed with previous work on secret key generation and it has been shown that this algorithm reliably generates longer secret keys in standard UWB radio channels.
To investigate schemes of secret key generation from Ultra-wideband (UWB) channel, we study a statistical characterization of UWB outdoor channel for a campus playground scenario based on extensive measurements.Moreover, an efficient secret key generation mechanism exploiting multipath relative delay is developed, and verification of this algorithm is conducted in UWB Line-of-sight (LOS) outdoor channels.For the first time, we compare key-mismatch probability of UWB indoor and outdoor environments.Simulation results demonstrate that the number of multipath proportionally affects key generation rate and key-mismatch probability.In comparison to the conventional method using received signal strength (RSS) as a common random source, our mechanism achieves better performance in terms of common secret bit generation.Simultaneously, security analysis indicates that the proposed scheme can still guarantee security even in the sparse outdoor physical environment free of many reflectors.
Symmetric secret key generation from physical layer measurements has recently emerged as an alternative to computationally secure protocols or predistribution techniques for key sharing. This new approach takes advantage of the intrinsic properties of radio channels (e.g. reciprocity and spatial decorrelation) by quantizing measurable channel characteristics into a suite of codewords. However, noise or other transmission artifacts can degrade the link reciprocity and lead to bit errors between the users' codewords, which are strongly related to the quantization thresholds. In this paper, we present a framework for quantization in the context of key generation. In order to find a trade-off between reciprocity (an indicator of robustness) and codeword diversity (an indicator of randomness) under a fixed-length constraint, we investigate the non-uniform quantization and we show the interest of optimizing the quantization thresholds as a function of the signal-to-noise ratio.
The constraints imposed by the computational and energy capabilities of Internet of Things (IoT) devices are challenging for ensuring secure communication between these devices. One promising solution to address these security challenges is leveraging Physical Layer Security (PHYSEC) principles. This paper investigates in the area of PHYSEC, particularly focusing on the utilization of channel reciprocity for generating a secret key, commonly referred to as Physical Layer Secret Key Generation (PSKG), in Ultra-Wideband (UWB) technology. PSKG usually contain an Information Reconciliation (IR) stage to improve the probability for identical keys, which comes with substantial computational and communication cost. The primary objective of this paper is to eliminate this IR stage and its associated costs while still achieving a high probability for identical keys. To accomplish this goal, we propose a Pre-Processing (PP) stage involving a Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT)-based approach. This approach extracts reciprocal randomness from the Channel Impulse Response (CIR). By exploiting the CIR and our proposed PP stage, we were able to slightly improve the key generation rate while reducing the probability of successful attacks by a significant 87% in dynamic environments compared to the state-of-the-art. Notably, our approach does not require a training phase, making it more efficient for IoT devices.