Signal strength based wireless Location Verification under spatially correlated shadowing

Given the growing role of location information in emerging wireless networks, the authentication of such information is becoming increasingly important. Perhaps the most obvious example of this is in network-based Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), where authentication of location information is of critical importance to the safety and security of the system users. In this work, we investigate for the first time the performance limits of a Location Verification System (LVS) in the realistic setting of correlated log-normal fading channels. Utilizing the wireless signal strengths measured by authorized base stations as the input location information metrics, robust theoretical analysis and detailed simulations are used in order to determine the impact of key parameter settings on the LVS performance. Specifically, we show how the performance of an LVS depends on the correlation of the shadowing, and illustrate how such correlation can in fact lead to significant location-authentication performance improvement in some circumstances. The impact on performance of utilizing differential signal strengths, rather than raw received signal strengths, at the LVS is also analyzed. In a wider context, the work reported on here provides new insights into the performance of location authentication in channel settings that are anticipated for a wide range of emerging wireless networks.