Resilient Random Time-Hopping Reply Against Distance Attacks in UWB Ranging

In order to mitigate the distance reduction attack in Ultra-Wide Band (UWB) ranging, this paper proposes a secure ranging scheme based on a random time-hopping mechanism without redundant signaling overhead, which is also backward compatible with existing standards such as IEEE 802.15.4a/z. By randomly varying the reply interval between ranging messages while maintaining synchronization of the interval between legitimate devices, distance attacks can be effectively defended against. The effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed strategy are demonstrated through simulation and experiments in the case of the Ghost Peak attack, which can effectively reduce the ranging distance of existing commercial UWB chips. The random time-hopping mechanism is verified to be capable of reducing the success rate of distance reduction attacks to less than 0.01 %, thereby significantly enhancing the security of UWB ranging.