8–12 Sept 2025
Edward D. Hansen Conference Center
US/Pacific timezone
GRCon25 Draft Schedule is Live!

gr-PHYSEC: Real-time Channel-based Key Generation for Physical Layer Secure Wireless Communications

10 Sept 2025, 11:45
15m
Edward D. Hansen Conference Center

Edward D. Hansen Conference Center

2000 Hewitt Avenue Everett, WA 98201
Paper (with talk) RADAR and Communications Main Track

Speaker

Mr Jose Sanchez (Florida Atlantic University)

Description

Securing wireless communication against eavesdropping is critical, particularly in dynamic and decentralized environments. We present gr-PHYSEC, a new GNU Radio out-of-tree (OOT) module for real-time physical-layer key generation. Unlike traditional key generation that relies on pre-shared secrets or computational complexity, our approach derives symmetric keys from the wireless channel’s inherent randomness.

We embed a trained neural network within GNU Radio to extract channel features between trusted parties (Alice and Bob) during probe exchanges. These features are quantized into binary keys, reconciled via Reed-Solomon encoding, and further secured with SHA-256 hashing. The generated keys are then directly used to encrypt data. Real-world experiments at the FAU CAAI connected robotics testbed using ADALM Pluto software-defined radios and NVIDIA Jetson Orin validate the approach with ground robotic platforms. Results demonstrate low key disagreement rates and strong randomness, as verified by the NIST test suite for random and pseudorandom number generators for cryptographic applications. This integration showcases how GNU Radio can support real-time AI-driven security solutions, pushing the boundaries of software-defined secure communication.

Talk Length 15 Minutes
Link to Open Source Code https://github.com/C2A2-at-Florida-Atlantic-University/gr-PHYSEC.git

Primary authors

Mr Jose Sanchez (Florida Atlantic University) George Sklivanitis (Florida Atlantic University) Prof. Dimitris Pados (Florida Atlantic University)

Presentation materials