RF Reverse Engineering with GNU Radio Radiofrequency Challenge as Competencies for New Curricula (SAé)

We promoted, for the new University Bachelor of Technology curricula introduce in 2020, new skills-based training method through a new teaching form: learning and assessment situations (SAé). This practical assessment situations are considered as use cases implementations from fundamental concepts studied in Telecommunications, Mathematics and Computer Science courses. In 3rd semester start (of 6 semesters BUT total curricula), we offer a radio challenge as the Capture- The-Flag (CTF) challenge with a radio frequency remote control (433MHz) reverse engineering. Sstudents' work in pairs and have a hardware Software Defined Radio (SDR) module controlled by an open-source software tool (GNU Radio) loaned by the institute for the duration of this challenge. After detecting and analysing the frequency carrier, students must decode and identified the binary data frame. In order to validate to succeed the challenge, they must re-encode the binary command frame to transmit an encoded modulation signal on the same radiofrequency channel. The challenge is to change the RF sequence replay transmit by the SDR module driven by a GNU Radio programs in order to check the real remote system operation (relay open or close) during a defense concluded by a functional demonstration. These topics really open the theoretical Telecommunications black box, and bypassing the remote control and switching the relay by their own program is very challenging for students