An Overview of Challenges to Long-Term Sustainability and Scalability of Radio Frequency Fingerprinting

Internet of Things (IoT) technology has become ubiquitous with a broad spectrum of applications. This vast penetration entails formidable cyber-security for the stable operation of the associated systems. Most inexpensive IoT devices employ rudimentary cryptographic security mechanisms due to their resource-limited architecture. Radio frequency fingerprinting (RFF) is a physical layer security mechanism that leverages hardware impairments for authentication and device classification. To this end, its scope has been limited to academia owing to daunting challenges. In this work, an abridged overview of the state-of-the-art is provided, along with a summary of the challenges that hinder progress toward practical applications. The article culminates with a discussion on the intricacies of performance metrics in RFF and the direction for future research.