Introduction

The ATA835x device family includes highly integrated low-power UWB transceivers with an integrated security layer for secure distance bounding and point-to-point data communication for industrial applications. This application note gives an overview of the operating modes for data communication and distance measurement for the ATA8352 UWB transceiver and highlights the mechanisms for secure data communication. It discusses the differences between the modes with Bit Error Rate (BER) and Packet Loss Rate (PLR) measurements.

A software application for the UWB demo kit is discussed, which implements data communication in combination with secure ranging. The ranging uses the secure operating mode VRso/PRso of the ATA8352 to link the data communication with the RX/TX mode to the ranging. The prover response packet of the ranging is used for handshaking and resynchronization in the case of bit errors. In addition to the data communication, the distance between the two devices is measured, which may be used to verify the close proximity between the devices.

All the communication, handshaking and restart operation uses in-band communication within one UWB channel. When using out-of-band communication (for example, via Bluetooth® Low Energy or Bluetooth) to control the data communication and ranging, the restart mechanism can be avoided and an enhanced exchange of the crypto and secure keys can be handled. This ensures an increase in the security level.

The RX and TX modes do not include secure physical layer handling and require additional measures for secure data transmission. The following methods must be considered to ensure data communication:
  • Data privacy using encryption methods like Advanced-Encryption-Standard. For more details, refer to the AES-CBC Cipher Algorithm and Its Use with IPsec – RFC3602 (datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc3602).
  • Data error correction to detect and correct transmission errors using Forward Error Correction (FEC) methods like Reed-Solomon (RS) codes (datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc5510).
  • Data authentication to ensure the authenticity of the transmitter using Message-Authentication-Codes (MAC) with Secure-Hash-Algorithms (SHA) (datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc2104).
These methods are standard procedures used in data communication systems. With the ATA8352 device, a combination of secure distance measurement and secure data communication can be achieved by combining the methods.
  • The ATA8352 Ultra-Wide-Band (UWB) transceiver for distance bounding and ranging application
  • Data communication using the RX and TX modes of the UWB device
  • Data communication in combination with ranging
  • Software applications for UWB demo kits