CHRONICLE - Technologies for Anonymity and Location Privacy of Wireless Emitters

Reliable monitoring and surveillance of sensitive country borders involves the deployment of heterogeneous static and mobile devices in charge of collecting data from the surrounding environment and delivering them wirelessly to collection points for further analysis. However, enemies planning to take offensive actions could exploit wireless transmissions to detect, localize, and neutralize devices in charge of surveillance functions, so gaining a competitive advantage. This project proposal, namely NEBULA, proposes to design, develop, deploy, and test various solutions for robust radio monitoring of sensitive country borders. We focus on the development of techniques providing anonymity and location privacy to the involved wireless-enabled devices (including, e.g., sensors, drones, robots), thus enhancing the robustness of the monitoring infrastructure. We specifically investigate solutions to preserve the anonymity of wireless-enabled devices against Radio Frequency Fingerprinting (RFF) at the physical layer, as well as approaches to preserve the location privacy of such devices against opportunistic Wireless Localization (WL). We will investigate the trade-offs involving security, privacy, cost of the solution, energy consumption and communication efficiency deriving from the adoption of the proposed solutions. The project will last for 3 years and include scientific experts from the Netherlands, Qatar and Italy, with cooperation from various end users.

Eindhoven University of Technology