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An Adversarial Jamming Attack Detection Method Using Energy-Detection-Based Hardware for IoT Systems

delete2026-03-02
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PRE
AI
K
K. Shabd Swaroop
V
Vikram Verma
U
Ufuk Muncuk
A
Ankit Mittal
A
Aatmesh Shrivastava
DOI:10.1109/JIOT.2026.3667565delete
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Abstract

Abstract

En 中文
This article presents an adversarial jamming attack detection method using energy-detection-based hardware for wireless Internet of Things (IoT) systems. The proposed method utilizes accurate RF signal energy level detection to establish a learning baseline for identifying different types of jamming attacks in wireless networks, which are often characterized by changes in RF energy levels. An adaptive threshold-based binary classification algorithm is implemented to use the detected signal’s energy level as the classification metric. This enables the detection of deceptive/reactive and periodic jamming attacks. Energy levels of the RF signal are measured using an ultralow-power (ULP) direct RF-to-digital received signal strength indicator (RSSI) circuit, developed in a 65-nm CMOS technology, which consumes only 6 nW of power. Furthermore, the RSSI circuit incorporates a bandpass response to filter out the ambient signal in the network, providing resilience against continuous RF jammers. Furthermore, a system-level model of the proposed method is presented to demonstrate its detection capabilities. To mitigate the stochastic effects of the wireless channel, a minimum mean square error (MMSE) channel equalizer is integrated, which improves the detection accuracy by reducing the attack detection error by 21.6%. The RF transmission packet structure is modeled based on the IEEE 802.15.4 protocol. We conducted extensive over-the-air measurements under various attack modalities and scenarios using universal software radio peripheral (USRP) B210 software-defined radios (SDRs) to validate the detection accuracy of our proposed hardware-based detection method for energy-constrained IoT systems at 915 MHz. Measurement results demonstrate an accuracy of 96.4% for detecting deceptive jammer and periodic jammer, closely aligning with the simulation results.
Keywords:
Energy harvesting
hardware security
Internet of Things (IoT)
jamming attacks
received signal strength indicator (RSSI)
system modeling
wake-up radio

Journal

IEEE Internet of Things Journal cover
IEEE Internet of Things Journal
IF:
8.9
Papers:
1.4W
Citations:
7.8W

Organization

U
University of Cincinnati
Scholars:
1.8W
Papers: 1.4W
Citations: 2.2W
N
Northeastern University
Scholars:
2.5W
Papers: 1.6W
Citations: 3.0W