electronics
Article
Sensor-Based Entropy Source Analysis and Validation for Use
in IoT Environments
Florin Răstoceanu
1,
* , Răzvan Rughinis
,
1
, S
,
tefan-Dan Ciocîrlan
1
and Mihai Enache
2
Citation:
R˘astoceanu, F.; Rughinis
,
,
R.; Ciocîrlan, S
,
.-D.; Enache, M.
Sensor-Based Entropy Source
Analysis and Validation for Use in
IoT Environments. Electronics 2021,
10, 1173. https://doi.org/10.3390/
electronics10101173
Academic Editor: Francisco Falcone
Received: 24 April 2021
Accepted: 11 May 2021
Published: 14 May 2021
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4.0/).
1
Faculty of Automatic Control and Computers, University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest,
060042 Bucharest, Romania; razvan.rughinis@upb.ro (R.R.); stefan_dan.ciocirlan@upb.ro (S
,
.-D.C.)
2
Military Equipment and Technologies Research Agency, 077025 Clinceni, Romania; menache@acttm.ro
*
Correspondence: florin.rastoceanu@upb.ro; Tel.: +40-72-783-1560
Abstract:
The IoT market has grown significantly in recent years, and it is estimated that it will
continue to do so. For this reason, the need to identify new solutions to ensure security is vital for the
future development in this field. Inadequate sources of entropy are one of the factors that negatively
influence security. In this study, inspired by NIST’s latest entropy estimation recommendations, we
proposed a methodology for analyzing and validating a sensor-based entropy source, highlighted by
an innovative experiment design. Moreover, the proposed solution is analyzed in terms of resistance
to multiple types of attacks. Following an analysis of the influence of sensor characteristics and
settings on the entropy rate, we obtain a maximum entropy value of 0.63 per bit, and a throughput
of 3.12 Kb/s, even when no motion is applied on the sensors. Our results show that a stable and
resistant entropy source can be built based on the data obtained from the sensors. Our assessment of
the proposed entropy source also achieves a higher complexity than previous studies, in terms of the
variety of approached situations and the types of the performed experiments.
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