Assessment of the impact of CFO on RF-DNA fingerprint classification performance

Abstract

In an effort to augment existing bit-level network security mechanisms, a significant amount of research has been conducted in the area of physical layer device discrimination. One such physical layer device discrimination technique, known as RF-DNA fingerprinting, has successfully demonstrated serial number device discrimination. This work extends the RF-DNA fingerprinting state-of-the-art by investigating the impact the existence of carrier frequency offset or the lack thereof has on RF-DNA fingerprint based device discrimination performance. A comparative assessment was conducted using various cases in which carrier frequency offset values were: 1) removed, 2) unique, 3) random, and 4) combinations thereof. This assessment included the use of RF-DNA fingerprints extracted from collected IEEE 802.11a WiFi preambles in which carrier frequency offset values were present. This work shows that RF-DNA fingerprints associated with devices whose preambles contained carrier frequency offset values which were unique, when compared to the values associated with the other devices, resulted in that device being easily discriminated from the others.