Research Projects

While modulation classification in wireless communications is primarily developed for spectrum management, sharing, and enforcement in civilian/military applications, it can be exploited by an adversary to threaten user privacy via traffic analysis, or launch selective jamming and spoofing attacks. Modulation obfuscation aims to conceal the payload’s modulation scheme/transmission rate; hence protecting the users from the related security/privacy attacks. We develop modulation obfuscation techniques and analyze their robustness against novel countermeasures one may employ, including machine learning-based techniques.

Cellular networks are rapidly expanding their coverage and capacity to enhance connectivity services. However, this expansion likely requires coexistence with other systems—such as Wi-Fi and radio astronomy—on newly allocated frequencies. Zero-forcing beamforming is a prominent approach for limiting a base station’s interference at unintended or incumbent receivers. We investigate how this technique can be used to efficiently coexist with active Wi-Fi access points and passive radio telescopes, which require a quiet zone to detect faint signals from celestial objects, while addressing potential negative impacts on intended users and the risk of security threats in interference management, e.g., Wi-Fi starvation and astronomical measurements poisoning attacks.