Current Analysis on
Communication Engineering

Guest Editor 

Héctor J. De Los Santos, Ph.D

NanoMEMS Research, LLC
Irvine, CA 92604

Deadline: 30 April 2019

True Random Number Generator Concepts for Secure Wireless Communications

A Brief Description of the Aims and Objectives

The aim of this thematic issue is to document the current state of progress in the research and development of physical device and circuit concepts addressing the issue of secure wireless communications in the emerging Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G era. Indeed, while the explosion in internet-connected wireless terminals, which is said to have begun between the years 2008-2009, when the number of interconnected devices surpassed the world population, continues unabated, concerns regarding the security of the information being shared, in light of increasing transmission-intercepting (“hacking”) incidents, is a topic of much interest. This is easy to understand given the high value of the information flowing through the IoT, which includes not only that of a personal nature but, in particular, of a business nature (e.g., company finances, bank accounts and credit cards), and pertaining to the control of autonomous and remotely-controlled vehicles. Secure wireless communications technology has traditionally relied on the generation of random numbers (RNs), which are employed for effecting information modulation or cryptographic encoding in such a way that it can only be demodulated or decoded with a replica of such RNs. In this context, since the RNs are generated by computer algorithms that eventually repeat the initial RN sequence, a risk exists that such RNs may be deciphered and used to extract the information in question. To overcome this issue, a number of approaches to generate RNs via physical processes in devices, i.e., that, being derived from naturally-occurring physical effects and processes, do not repeat themselves, thus, are purely random, are being researched. The scope of this thematic issue encompasses a comprehensive look at the true random number generation field.

Keywords: Secure Communications, Cybersecurity, 5G, Internet of Things, IoT, True Random Number Generator, Wireless Communications

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