Design and FPGA Implementation of a Pseudo-random Number Generator Based on a Hopfield Neural Network Under Electromagnetic Radiation

• Main Authors: Fei Yu, Zinan Zhang, Hui Shen, Yuanyuan Huang, Shuo Cai, Jie Jin, Sichun Du
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-06-01
• Series: Frontiers in Physics
• Subjects: PRNG; hopfield neural network; electromagnetic radiation; chaotic degradation; FPGA; security analysis
• Online Access: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2021.690651/full

When implementing a pseudo-random number generator (PRNG) for neural network chaos-based systems on FPGAs, chaotic degradation caused by numerical accuracy constraints can have a dramatic impact on the performance of the PRNG. To suppress this degradation, a PRNG with a feedback controller based on a Hopfield neural network chaotic oscillator is proposed, in which a neuron is exposed to electromagnetic radiation. We choose the magnetic flux across the cell membrane of the neuron as a feedback condition of the feedback controller to disturb other neurons, thus avoiding periodicity. The proposed PRNG is modeled and simulated on Vivado 2018.3 software and implemented and synthesized by the FPGA device ZYNQ-XC7Z020 on Xilinx using Verilog HDL code. As the basic entropy source, the Hopfield neural network with one neuron exposed to electromagnetic radiation has been implemented on the FPGA using the high precision 32-bit Runge Kutta fourth-order method (RK4) algorithm from the IEEE 754-1985 floating point standard. The post-processing module consists of 32 registers and 15 XOR comparators. The binary data generated by the scheme was tested and analyzed using the NIST 800.22 statistical test suite. The results show that it has high security and randomness. Finally, an image encryption and decryption system based on PRNG is designed and implemented on FPGA. The feasibility of the system is proved by simulation and security analysis.