A Unified Open-Set Framework for Scalable PUF-Based Authentication of Heterogeneous IoT Devices

Xin Wang; Peichun Hua; Chip Hong Chang; Wenye Liu; Yue Zheng

Accepted · IEEE SMC 2026

A Unified Open-Set Framework for Scalable PUF-Based Authentication of Heterogeneous IoT Devices

Xin Wang, Peichun Hua, Chip Hong Chang, Wenye Liu, Yue Zheng

Read paper (PDF) arXiv record arXiv PDF Code

Overview

This work develops a unified authentication framework for heterogeneous IoT devices using physical unclonable functions (PUFs). Open-set recognition identifies enrolled devices while rejecting impostors, without requiring helper data.

Method

Responses from Arbiter, SRAM, DRAM, and heterogeneous PUFs are encoded as images for an OpenGAN-based classifier. A generic authentication protocol combines the classifier with hybrid encryption and Bloom filter-based replay detection.

Open-set PUF authentication diagram showing enrollment, encrypted PUF responses, a Bloom filter for replay detection, and a classifier that identifies enrolled devices or rejects unknown ones. — Enrollment and authentication combine PUF response classification, replay detection, and rejection of unknown devices. Figure 2 in the paper

Evaluation

Experiments report 100% closed-set accuracy and near-zero open-set error rates for the evaluated fleets of up to 45 devices. A Raspberry Pi prototype completes an authentication cycle within 0.67 seconds. The local PDF is the public arXiv manuscript; the acceptance status follows the publication record.

Authentication results for the proposed framework
PUF type	Enrolled devices	Closed-set accuracy	False acceptance rate	False rejection rate
Heterogeneous	45	100%	0.44%	0.43%
Arbiter	25	100%	0.35%	0%
SRAM	40	100%	0.13%	0.62%
DRAM (noisy)	3	100%	0.33%	2.04%

Proposed-method columns from Table II. The heterogeneous fleet contains 20 Arbiter and 25 SRAM PUFs. Noisy DRAM measurements cover 20–50°C and supply voltages of 1.5 V and 1.27 V. Closed-set accuracy measures identification among enrolled devices; false acceptance and rejection measure open-set authentication errors. Table II in the paper

physical unclonable functions
IoT authentication
open-set recognition
OpenGAN
hardware security

Citation

@inproceedings{wang2026openpuf,
  title={A Unified Open-Set Framework for Scalable PUF-Based Authentication of Heterogeneous IoT Devices},
  author={Xin Wang and Peichun Hua and Chip Hong Chang and Wenye Liu and Yue Zheng},
  booktitle={IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC)},
  year={2026},
  organization={IEEE}
}