In the increasingly interconnected world of the Internet of Things (IoT), small and strongly resource-constrained devices collect and process highly sensitive data. Sensitive data are sent and received over wireless connection to servers or shared with other eligible devices. In parallel, IoT devices are frequently accessible to potential attackers, which enables attacks at protocol level but also malicious tampering with the hardware (HW). APRIORI (Advanced PRivacy of IOT Devices through Robust Hardware Implementations) aims to support privacy by design in this scenario. Since many IoT devices are resource constrained and cannot use a fully blown trusted platform module, APRIORI will develop a secure system: we will enhance the DICE (Device Identifier Composition Engine) concept by coupling it to the HW and enable a high level of security and privacy at low cost. Key material in our system will be stored by a Physical Unclonable Function (PUF). This enables an affordable implementation in resource constrained devices and simple methods to enroll device individual keys, which are intrinsically connected to HW. Since the IoT devices are potentially accessible for attackers, we identified Fault Injection Attacks (FIA) as a critical and challenging attack vector, which might break the security and privacy of a specific device as well as - due to the high connectivity - of a complete network. APRIORI will focus on today hardly explored FIA on the key derivation from PUFs, on corresponding countermeasures, and on sensors to detect FIA. HW extensions to a microcontroller (MC) will be suggested to drive the system into a secure state preserving privacy and confidentiality of data in case of a FIA. In APRIORI we develop a proof-of-concept IoT device based on an MC with the RISC-V ISA. Application software developers of IoT devices require an interface towards these HW secure features that is usable without having severe security knowledge. We will define and develop a simplified Trust Anchor API for IoT devices, capable of handling all required secure functionalities. As a forecast on the 10 years after the project starts, we expect the simplified Trust Anchor API to influence a standardization for secure IoT devices and to become used in practice. Furthermore, future devices will have to consider FIA as a potential attack vector, which is currently intensively under research. Sensors to protect against FIA will be common and if a PUF is used as a key storage solution, it will be necessary to protect it against such attacks. Concluding, the research carried out in APRIORI is of crucial importance to ensure the security and privacy of IoT devices in the future. The project especially benefits from the contribution of the different partners from France and Germany: IMT and TUM complement each other in the domain of FIA and PUFs, where IMT has significant experience with laser FIA, sensors and PUF primitives and TUM contributes knowledge regarding key derivation from PUFs and EM based FIA; AISEC, IMT, and TUM share knowledge on RISC-V, where AISEC especially contributes through background regarding the DICE concept. HW related tasks are supported from industry through Secure-IC; to not end up with an isolated piece of HW, Siemens will provide use cases and drive the development of a Trust Anchor API, while Mixed Mode will implement security functionality on the IoT device. Overall, only the formed consortium as a whole is able to reach the ambitious goals of APRIORI.

CONNECT aims to provide concepts, technologies and components that support enhanced integration of renewables and storage combined with intelligent control of the power flow. The demand for primary energy and the carbon dioxide emissions will be reduced and a decentralized energy infrastructure will be facilitated by these solutions. CONNECT investigates new concepts and technologies for power conversion that will be specifically developed for bidirectional power exchange with the grid and for controllable power flow in order to support the extended integration of renewables like PV and local storage. Power quality optimization will be explored in order to avoid unnecessary energy flows in the grid. The enhanced capabilities of the power conversion fit seamlessly to the smart energy management systems researched in CONNECT applicable for single/multiple buildings and quarters. Monitoring approaches and advanced control algorithms will be developed which take into account renewable energy sources, local storage and electric vehicles for peak demand reduction and optimization of local generation, consumption and storage. In order to fully exploit the advantages of the aforementioned technologies it is necessary to enhance the data transmission capacity of the smart grid communication infrastructure. For this purpose CONNECT will develop solutions for high interoperable, high data rate local and wide area communication in the grid with enhanced security in order to protect this critical infrastructure against attacks. Particular effort is spend to minimize the power consumption of the developed solutions. Selected results of CONNECT are planned to be demonstrated not only in lab environment but also in close to real life scenarios.

Progressus supports the European climate targets for 2030 by proposing a next generation smart grid, demonstrated by the application example “smart charging infrastructure” that integrates seamlessly into the already existing concepts of smart-grid architectures keeping additional investments minimal. The expected high-power requirements for ultra fast charging stations lead to special challenges for designing and establishing an intelligent charge-infrastructure. As emission free traffic concepts are a nascent economic topic also the efficient use of charging infrastructure is still in its infancy. Thus, novel sensor types, hardware security modules, inexpensive high bandwidth technologies and block-chain technology as part of an independent, extendable charging energy-management and customer platform are researched for a charging-station energy-microgrid. Research of new efficient high-power voltage converters, which support bidirectional power flow and provide a new type of highly economical charging stations with connected storage and metering platform to locally monitor the grid state complements the activities. The stations are intended to exploit the grid infrastructure via broadband power-line as communication medium, removing the need for costly civil engineering activities and supplying information to the energy management solutions for utilization optimization. Smart-Contracts via block-chain offer a distributed framework for the proposed energy management and services platform. Furthermore hardware security hardens the concept against direct physical attacks such as infiltration of the network by gaining access to the encryption key material even when a charging station is compromised. Progressus solutions are estimated to enable a carbon dioxide saving of 800.000 tons per year for only Germany, will secure the competitiveness of European industry and research by extending the system know how and will thus safeguard employment and production in Europe.