The Internet of Things (IoT) represents a significant advancement in digital technology, with its rapidly growing network of interconnected devices. This expansion, however, brings forth critical challenges in data security and reliability, especially under the threat of increasing cyber vulnerabilities. Addressing the security concerns, the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is commonly employed for secure encryption in IoT systems. Our study explores an innovative use of AES, by repurposing AES padding bits for error correction and thus introducing a dual-functional method that seamlessly integrates error-correcting capabilities into the standard encryption process. The integration of the state-of-the-art Guessing Random Additive Noise Decoder (GRAND) in the receiver's architecture facilitates the joint decoding and decryption process. This strategic approach not only preserves the existing structure of the transmitter but also significantly enhances communication reliability in noisy environments, achieving a notable over 3 dB gain in Block Error Rate (BLER). Remarkably, this enhanced performance comes with a minimal power overhead at the receiver - less than 15% compared to the traditional decryption-only process, underscoring the efficiency of our hardware design for IoT applications. This paper discusses a comprehensive analysis of our approach, particularly in energy efficiency and system performance, presenting a novel and practical solution for reliable IoT communications.

翻译：物联网作为数字技术的重大进步，其互联设备网络正迅速扩展。然而，这种扩张带来了数据安全性与可靠性的严峻挑战，尤其是在网络脆弱性日益加剧的威胁下。为应对安全性问题，高级加密标准（AES）被广泛应用于物联网系统的安全加密。本研究探索了一种AES的创新性应用，通过重新利用AES填充比特实现纠错功能，从而提出一种将纠错能力无缝集成到标准加密过程中的双功能方法。在接收端架构中集成最新的猜测随机加性噪声解码器（GRAND），促进了联合解码与解密过程。这一策略不仅保留了发射端的现有结构，还显著增强了嘈杂环境下的通信可靠性，在误块率（BLER）方面实现了超过3 dB的显著增益。值得注意的是，这种性能提升仅以接收端极小的功耗开销为代价——与传统仅解密过程相比，功耗增加不足15%，凸显了该硬件设计在物联网应用中的高效性。本文从能效与系统性能角度对我们的方法进行了全面分析，为可靠的物联网通信提出了一种新颖且实用的解决方案。