DATA SECURITY USING ADVANCED ENCRYPTION STANDARD (AES) IN RECONFIGURABLE HARDWARE FOR SDR BASED WIRELESS SYSTEMS

A software defined radio (SDR) is a radio transmitt er/receiver that uses reconfigurable hardware and software for encoding/decoding, modula tion/demodulation, and encrypting/decrypting. This allows much more power and flexibility when de signing any radio system. The AES algorithm is a block cipher that can encrypt and decrypt digi tal information. The AES algorithm is capable of using cryptographic keys of 128, 192, and 256 bits. The Rijndael cipher has been selected as the official Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) as it i s well suited for reconfigurable hardware. The Advanced Encryption Standard can be programmed in software or built with hardware.