Full Program
Summary:
Modern vehicles increasingly support wireless connectivity with various mobile devices, but existing authentication methods like Bluetooth pairing create unnecessary friction in shared mobility scenarios. This paper presents TPkey, a novel zero-involvement authentication protocol that leverages tire pressure monitoring system's (TPMS) radio transmissions to allow secure and autonomous device authentication within vehicles. The system extracts high-entropy keys from demodulated TPMS signal characteristics that are only accessible within the vehicle's physical boundary. Our implementation addresses key technical challenges, including precise time synchronization between devices and efficient entropy extraction from raw signals. Extensive evaluation of TPkey achieves 100% authentication success rate for legitimate devices, while maintaining 0% false acceptance rate for adversaries, with key generation time of 1.3 s. Furthermore, TPkey maintains reliable performance across various driving conditions and device positions within the vehicle, offering a practical solution for seamless and secure device authentication in modern automotive environments.Author(s):
Omar Achkar
University of Houston
United States
Larry Nissen
University of Houston
United States
Shahryar Raza
University of Houston
United States
Rushikesh Shirsat
Loyola University Chicago
United States
Neil Klingensmith
Loyola University Chicago
United States
George Zouridakis
University of Houston
United States
Kyu In Lee
University of Houston
United States