A Comprehensive Survey on Radio Frequency (RF) Fingerprinting:
Traditional Approaches, Deep Learning, and Open Challenges
Abstract
Fifth generation (5G) networks and beyond envisions massive Internet of
Things (IoT) rollout to support disruptive applications such as extended
reality (XR), augmented/virtual reality (AR/VR), industrial automation,
autonomous driving, and smart everything which brings together massive
and diverse IoT devices occupying the radio frequency (RF) spectrum.
Along with spectrum crunch and throughput challenges, such a massive
scale of wireless devices exposes unprecedented threat surfaces. RF
fingerprinting is heralded as a candidate technology that can be
combined with cryptographic and zero-trust security measures to ensure
data privacy, confidentiality, and integrity in wireless networks.
Motivated by the relevance of this subject in the future communication
networks, in this work, we present a comprehensive survey of RF
fingerprinting approaches ranging from a traditional view to the most
recent deep learning (DL) based algorithms. Existing surveys have mostly
focused on a constrained presentation of the wireless fingerprinting
approaches, however, many aspects remain untold. In this work, however,
we mitigate this by addressing every aspect - background on signal
intelligence (SIGINT), applications, relevant DL algorithms, systematic
literature review of RF fingerprinting techniques spanning the past two
decades, discussion on datasets, and potential research avenues -
necessary to elucidate this topic to the reader in an encyclopedic
manner.