Probability-Reduction of Geolocation using Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface Reflections

With the recent introduction of electromagnetic meta-surfaces and reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, a paradigm shift is currently taking place in the world of wireless communications and related industries. These new technologies have enabled the inclusion of the wireless channel as part of the optimization process. This is of great interest as we transition from 5G mobile communications towards 6G. In this paper, we explore the possibility of using a reconfigurable intelligent surface in order to disrupt the ability of an unintended receiver to geolocate the source of transmitted signals in a 5G communication system. We investigate how the performance of the MUSIC algorithm at the unintended receiver is degraded by correlated reflected signals introduced by a reconfigurable intelligent surface in the wireless channel. We analyze the impact of the direction of arrival, delay, correlation, and strength of the reconfigurable intelligent surface signal with respect to the line-of-sight path from the transmitter to the unintended receiver. An effective method is introduced for defeating direction-finding efforts using dual sets of surface reflections. This novel method is called Geolocation-Probability Reduction using Dual Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (GPRIS). We also show that the efficiency of this method is highly dependent on the geometry, that is, the placement of the reconfigurable intelligent surface relative to the unintended receiver and the transmitter.

Scaled-Time-Attention Robust Edge Network

This paper describes a systematic approach towards building a new family of neural networks based on a delay-loop version of a reservoir neural network. The resulting architecture, called Scaled-Time-Attention Robust Edge (STARE) network, exploits hyper dimensional space and non-multiply-and-add computation to achieve a simpler architecture, which has shallow layers, is simple to train, and is better suited for Edge applications, such as Internet of Things (IoT), over traditional deep neural networks. STARE incorporates new AI concepts such as Attention and Context, and is best suited for temporal feature extraction and classification. We demonstrate that STARE is applicable to a variety of applications with improved performance and lower implementation complexity. In particular, we showed a novel way of applying a dual-loop configuration to detection and identification of drone vs bird in a counter Unmanned Air Systems (UAS) detection application by exploiting both spatial (video frame) and temporal (trajectory) information. We also demonstrated that the STARE performance approaches that of a State-of-the-Art deep neural network in classifying RF modulations, and outperforms Long Short-term Memory (LSTM) in a special case of Mackey Glass time series prediction. To demonstrate hardware efficiency, we designed and developed an FPGA implementation of the STARE algorithm to demonstrate its low-power and high-throughput operations. In addition, we illustrate an efficient structure for integrating a massively parallel implementation of the STARE algorithm for ASIC implementation.

Training Data Augmentation for Deep Learning RF Systems

Applications of machine learning are subject to three major components that contribute to the final performance metrics. Within the specifics of neural networks, and deep learning specifically, the first two are the architecture for the model being trained and the training approach used. This work focuses on the third component, the data being used during training. The questions that arise are then "what is in the data" and "what within the data matters?" Looking into the Radio Frequency Machine Learning (RFML) field of Modulation Classification, the use of synthetic, captured, and augmented data are examined and compared to provide insights about the quantity and quality of the available data presented. In general, all three data types have useful contributions to a final application, but captured data germane to the intended use case will always provide more significant information and enable the greatest performance. Despite the benefit of captured data, the difficulties that arise from collection often make the quantity of data needed to achieve peak performance impractical. This paper helps quantify the balance between real and synthetic data, offering concrete examples where training data is parametrically varied in size and source.

Investigating a Spectral Deception Loss Metric for Training Machine Learning-based Evasion Attacks

Adversarial evasion attacks have been very successful in causing poor performance in a wide variety of machine learning applications. One such application is radio frequency spectrum sensing. While evasion attacks have proven particularly successful in this area, they have done so at the detriment of the signal's intended purpose. More specifically, for real-world applications of interest, the resulting perturbed signal that is transmitted to evade an eavesdropper must not deviate far from the original signal, less the intended information is destroyed. Recent work by the authors and others has demonstrated an attack framework that allows for intelligent balancing between these conflicting goals of evasion and communication. However, while these methodologies consider creating adversarial signals that minimize communications degradation, they have been shown to do so at the expense of the spectral shape of the signal. This opens the adversarial signal up to defenses at the eavesdropper such as filtering, which could render the attack ineffective. To remedy this, this work introduces a new spectral deception loss metric that can be implemented during the training process to force the spectral shape to be more in-line with the original signal. As an initial proof of concept, a variety of methods are presented that provide a starting point for this proposed loss. Through performance analysis, it is shown that these techniques are effective in controlling the shape of the adversarial signal.

Effects of Forward Error Correction on Communications Aware Evasion Attacks

Recent work has shown the impact of adversarial machine learning on deep neural networks (DNNs) developed for Radio Frequency Machine Learning (RFML) applications. While these attacks have been shown to be successful in disrupting the performance of an eavesdropper, they fail to fully support the primary goal of successful intended communication. To remedy this, a communications-aware attack framework was recently developed that allows for a more effective balance between the opposing goals of evasion and intended communication through the novel use of a DNN to intelligently create the adversarial communication signal. Given the near ubiquitous usage of forward error correction (FEC) coding in the majority of deployed systems to correct errors that arise, incorporating FEC in this framework is a natural extension of this prior work and will allow for improved performance in more adverse environments. This work therefore provides contributions to the framework through improved loss functions and design considerations to incorporate inherent knowledge of the usage of FEC codes within the transmitted signal. Performance analysis shows that FEC coding improves the communications aware adversarial attack even if no explicit knowledge of the coding scheme is assumed and allows for improved performance over the prior art in balancing the opposing goals of evasion and intended communications.

Deep Learning for RF Signal Classification in Unknown and Dynamic Spectrum Environments

Dynamic spectrum access (DSA) benefits from detection and classification of interference sources including in-network users, out-network users, and jammers that may all coexist in a wireless network. We present a deep learning based signal (modulation) classification solution in a realistic wireless network setting, where 1) signal types may change over time; 2) some signal types may be unknown for which there is no training data; 3) signals may be spoofed such as the smart jammers replaying other signal types; and 4) different signal types may be superimposed due to the interference from concurrent transmissions. For case 1, we apply continual learning and train a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) using an Elastic Weight Consolidation (EWC) based loss. For case 2, we detect unknown signals via outlier detection applied to the outputs of convolutional layers using Minimum Covariance Determinant (MCD) and k-means clustering methods. For case 3, we extend the CNN structure to capture phase shifts due to radio hardware effects to identify the spoofing signal sources. For case 4, we apply blind source separation using Independent Component Analysis (ICA) to separate interfering signals. We utilize the signal classification results in a distributed scheduling protocol, where in-network (secondary) users employ signal classification scores to make channel access decisions and share the spectrum with each other while avoiding interference with out-network (primary) users and jammers. Compared with benchmark TDMA-based schemes, we show that distributed scheduling constructed upon signal classification results provides major improvements to in-network user throughput and out-network user success ratio.

Evaluating Adversarial Evasion Attacks in the Context of Wireless Communications

Recent advancements in radio frequency machine learning (RFML) have demonstrated the use of raw in-phase and quadrature (IQ) samples for multiple spectrum sensing tasks. Yet, deep learning techniques have been shown, in other applications, to be vulnerable to adversarial machine learning (ML) techniques, which seek to craft small perturbations that are added to the input to cause a misclassification. The current work differentiates the threats that adversarial ML poses to RFML systems based on where the attack is executed from: direct access to classifier input, synchronously transmitted over the air (OTA), or asynchronously transmitted from a separate device. Additionally, the current work develops a methodology for evaluating adversarial success in the context of wireless communications, where the primary metric of interest is bit error rate and not human perception, as is the case in image recognition. The methodology is demonstrated using the well known Fast Gradient Sign Method to evaluate the vulnerabilities of raw IQ based Automatic Modulation Classification and concludes RFML is vulnerable to adversarial examples, even in OTA attacks. However, RFML domain specific receiver effects, which would be encountered in an OTA attack, can present significant impairments to adversarial evasion.