Kazan Federal University

State Prize in Science and Technology of Tatarstan awarded to KFU physicists for research of radio waves in atmosphere

The announcement was made this week.

The team comprises Head of the Department of Radio Physics Oleg Sherstyukov, Professor of the Department of Radio Physics Arkady Karpov, Professor of the Department of Radio Electronics Igor Nasyrov, Associate Professor of the Department of Radio Physics Amir Sulimov, Professor of the Department of Radio Astronomy German Teptin, and Professor of the Department of Radio Astronomy Olga Khutorova.

Their works are dedicated to the atmosphere in its entirety. In particular, meteor studies have been a mainstay of Kazan University’s research for over six decades. During this time, a school of meteor and ionosphere research has emerged. Among the main achievements are over 25 government contracts, 20 patents, five generations of unique meteor radars, seven generations of time synchronization devices, and two lines of transpolar meteor communication.

Based on the existing technology in radio communication and ultra-precision synchronization, a new discipline – meteor cryptography – was established. It’s based on the natural unpredictability on meteor activity. A cryptographic key is created based on a given meteor channel situation, and then changes unpredictably with the appearance of each new meteor.

The principle of cryptography based on a random trajectory of a signal was then expanded on mobile communication. As opposed to a meteor channel, where the randomization is based on meteor activity, in mobile communication systems, it occurs due to random movements of clients and surrounding scatterers. It was found that urban environment is even more chaotic than a meteor channel. As a result, there is an opportunity to create a safe cryptographic channel between a mobile device and a base station.

Some test devices were created which showed a very high level of security compared to existing commercial or governmental applications. Basically, the reliability of this system is akin to quantum cryptography, but it’s significantly cheaper, easily adaptable, and more remote.

“We are very pleased that our longtime efforts were commended by the Government of Tatarstan, Tatarstan Academy of Sciences, and other experts. It’s especially valuable to receive such a prize during the Year of Science and Technology. We want people to know that near space monitoring had its roots at Kazan University,” shared Oleg Sherstyukov.

The studies of meteor-ionospheric phenomena and wave processes in the atmosphere by radio physical methods have resulted in the development of new types of equipment, unique knowledge in astronomy, physics of the atmosphere and ionosphere, and radio physics. They are widely used in the educational process.

 

Source text: Media Center

Photo: Alexander Kuznetsov

Translation: Yury Nurmeev

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