Vehicle Pre-Authentication Hash Verification for Battery Drain Prevention

Solution Overview

Problem

Vehicle systems face significant battery drain due to frequent authentication attempts from unauthorized wireless devices, which can lead to resource depletion and access issues, as they continuously broadcast unsecured BLE services to support initial connections and key delivery even when the vehicle is off and locked.

Innovation Solution

A pre-authentication scheme is implemented, where a unique vehicle identifier is used to compute a hash result, and if it matches the device's hash result, additional hardware is activated for secondary authentication; otherwise, authentication is rejected, thereby avoiding unnecessary battery drain from rogue devices.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Adaptability or versatility

If the vehicle continuously broadcasts unsecured BLE services to support initial connections and key delivery, then connectivity and key delivery functionality is improved, but battery drain increases due to frequent authentication attempts from unauthorized devices

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveconnectivity functionalityVSAvoidbattery drain

Core Design Contradiction:

Adaptability or versatilityVSUse of energy by moving object

Solution Approach 1:

The system performs preliminary authentication verification by checking if the connecting device's hash result matches the vehicle's hash result computed from the challenge value and vehicle identifier, before activating additional hardware for secondary authentication. This preliminary check filters out unauthorized devices early, preventing them from consuming battery resources during full authentication processes.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The patent introduces a hash function as an intermediary mechanism that transforms the challenge value and vehicle identifier into a verification result. This intermediary layer enables efficient pre-authentication without requiring direct hardware activation, thereby reducing energy consumption while maintaining security.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

2Reliability

If additional hardware is activated for every connection request to perform secondary authentication, then vehicle security is improved, but resource consumption increases due to key-off load from the additional hardware

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvevehicle securityVSAvoidresource consumption

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSLoss of energy

Solution Approach 1:

The system performs preliminary authentication verification by checking if the connecting device's hash result matches the vehicle's hash result computed from the challenge value and vehicle identifier, before activating additional hardware for secondary authentication. This preliminary check filters out unauthorized devices early, preventing them from consuming battery resources during full authentication processes.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The patent implements partial authentication by performing only the hash verification step for devices that fail to present valid credentials, rather than completing the full secondary authentication process. This partial action approach consumes minimal resources while effectively blocking unauthorized access attempts.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #16Partial or excessive action

3Reliability

If the vehicle performs full authentication for every connecting device, then authentication security is improved, but processing time and energy consumption increase due to unnecessary authentication of unauthorized devices

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveauthentication securityVSAvoidprocessing time

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The system performs preliminary authentication verification by checking if the connecting device's hash result matches the vehicle's hash result computed from the challenge value and vehicle identifier, before activating additional hardware for secondary authentication. This preliminary check filters out unauthorized devices early, preventing them from consuming battery resources during full authentication processes.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

Data Source

PatentUS11979742B2Unauthorized device resource drain prevention

Publication Date: 2024.05.07 FORD GLOBAL TECH LLC

AI summary

Detection and prevention of resource drain from unauthorized wireless device connections is provided. Responsive to receiving of a connection request from a connecting device, a pre-authentication message is sent to the connecting device, the pre-authentication message including a challenge value. A vehicle hash result is computed using a hash function taking the challenge value and the unique identifier of the vehicle as inputs. A device hash result is received from the connecting device. Responsive to a match of the vehicle hash result and the device hash result, additional hardware of the vehicle is activated to perform a secondary authentication of the connecting device. Responsive to a mismatch, authentication of the connecting device is rejected without activation of the additional hardware, thereby avoiding key-off load from the additional hardware in instances where pre-authentication of the connecting device fails.