The AES implementation for avoiding single event effects for satellite application

During the last decade, the development of space technology for the benefits of humanity has been a significant area of research. The communication systems used in space technology is more sensitive to environmental effects than that used on earth. As in space, communication systems should withstand radiations, pressure, and vacuum effects. Therefore, the different types of radiations exposed to electronic hardware in space can cause anomalies in communication systems. Such anomalies can cause loss of data and even damage to equipment due to effects known as Single Event Effects (SEE). The security services in space are provided using encryption algorithms such as Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). In the AES algorithm, the Substitution Box (S-Box) implementation generally utilizes memory blocks. These memory blocks are mostly affected by SEE in the presence of radiations. There are two main techniques for implementing the S-box for the AES algorithm either by generating a predefined table or using an algorithm-based architecture for substitution. In this paper, we have analyzed the pros and cons of using these architectures for the implementation of the S-Box on FPGA. Moreover, experimental results show that the algorithm-based architectural implementation is more SEE tolerant and more suitable for satellite application.