Flatness and structural analysis for the design of stream ciphers involving hybrid automata

This paper deals with hybrid dynamical systems in the context of cybersecurity and Cyber–Physical Systems. It is shown how the design of a cipher, called self-synchronizing stream cipher, can be recast as control-theoretic issues, in particular left inversion, flatness and structural analysis. From an automatic control point of view, the main contribution lies in a methodology to construct generic flat LPV systems. Beyond pure control theoretic matters, the design also addresses computational complexity and security concerns. Those considerations motivate a hybrid architecture involving switched automata. A Proof-Of-Concept example illustrates the design of a statistical self-synchronizing stream cipher and the way how it operates to encrypt data flows.