A novel RF fingerprinting approach for hardware integrated security

A novel approach for RF fingerprinting using a simple microwave passive device is proposed. This device is a multi-port cavity resonator filled with a dielectric material mixed with randomly-distributed micro- or nano-particles. Such structure generates a typical Physical Unclonable Function (PUF) that can be perfectly used for storing and protecting secure information. This mixture guarantees a spatial random distortion on the electromagnetic fields and consequently a unique fingerprint. The extraction of these fingerprints is based on the scattered near-fields which are represented by the S-parameters. Preliminary measurement results show a high degree of reliability and reproducibility of the fingerprints over the UWB frequency range.