Publication Abstract

Campbell, J. P., Campbell, W. M., Jones, D. A., Lewandowski, S. M., Reynolds, D. A., and Weinstein, C. J., Biometrically Enhanced Software-Defined Radios. In Proc. Software Defined Radio Technical Conference in Orlando, Florida, SDR Forum, 17-19 November 2003.

Abstract

Software-defined radios and cognitive radios offer tremendous promise, while having great need for user authentication. Authenticating users is essential to ensuring authorized access and actions in private and secure communications networks. User authentication for software-defined radios and cognitive radios is our focus here. We present various means of authenticating users to their radios and networks, authentication architectures, and the complementary combination of authenticators and architectures. Although devices can be strongly authenticated (e.g., cryptographically), reliably authenticating users is a challenge. To meet this challenge, we capitalize on new forms of user authentication combined with new authentication architectures to support features such as continuous user authentication and varying levels of trust-based authentication. We generalize biometrics to include recognizing user behaviors and use them in concert with knowledge- and token-based authenticators. An integrated approach to user authentication and user authentication architectures is presented here to enhance trusted radio communications networks.