A Secure FPGA-Based IoT Gateway for Smart Home Automation Using PUF-Based Authentication

The fast expansion of the Internet of Things (IoT) has accelerated the advancement of smart home technologies. However, secure communication and access control remain sig-nificant challenges. This paper presents a fully implemented FPGA-based IoT gateway that utilizes the Zynq-7000 SoC, integrating sensing, processing, wireless communication, and hardware-level authentication. Analog temperature data from an LM35 sensor is dig-itized via a 12-bit XADC and transmitted over Wi-Fi using an ESP8266-01 module. An SPI-based OLED provides real-time feedback. To ensure device-level trust, an XOR-based Physically Unclonable Function (PUF) enables lightweight challenge–response authenti-cation with over good uniqueness and a latency of under 10 ms. The system demonstrates ±0.5 °C sensing accuracy, <50 ms transmission delay, and low power consumption. It offers a scalable and secure platform suitable for real-time smart home and facility auto-mation.