Failure and Attack Detection by Digital Sensors

Timely notification of abnormal behaviors is essential in strategic systems requiring a high level of safety and security. Sensing environmental conditions to ensure that the device is not operating out-of-specifications is highly useful in detecting anomalies caused by failures or malevolent actions. Digital sensors consider the operating environmental conditions as a whole, i.e. they are sensitive to temperature, voltage and process altogether, without precise knowledge about each. This paper proposes a low-cost digital sensor that can detect system failures accurately in the designer's preferable range of operating conditions. Our experimental results show the high accuracy of this sensor in detecting circuits failure which occurred due to change of the operating temperature and supply voltage.