STRIX

Satellite True Random Information eXtractor

A portable wireless True Random Number Generator built on an Arduino MKR Vidor 4000.

Planned Design

Entropy comes from FPGA ring oscillators whose sampled timing jitter is XOR-combined into output bits, with no pseudo-random post-processing. A SAMD21 serves the results over WiFi and USB.

• Separate stream per entropy source
• Raw and processed output modes, with a von Neumann extractor that can be toggled per output path
• On-device health tests (NIST SP 800-90B repetition count and adaptive proportion)
• Live statistics: bias, z-score, random walk and autocorrelation
• Configurable random-walk / majority-vote bias amplifier

Set Up Dev Environment

Windows:

1. Install Arduino IDE from here or via chocolatey: choco install arduino
2. Install Intel Quartus Lite. In the list of devices select Cyclone 10 LP device support

FPGA Development

• Intel Quartus
  • Open Project > select strix.qpf from the fpga/src directory in this repo.

MCU Development

• Arduino IDE
  • Boards Manager > Install 'Arduino SAMD Boards' (search for 'Vidor 4000')
  • Library Manager > Install
    • VidorPeripherals
    • WiFiNINA (1.8.5, not higher)
  • Open Project > strix.ino from the arduino/strix directory in this repo

TODO

• Implement ring-oscillator entropy generators on the MKR Vidor 4000 FPGA
• Fetch random numbers from the FPGA via SPI
• Serve random numbers via USB
• Make Vidor pairable via Bluetooth/Wifi
• serve randomness wirelessly
• battery pack
• 3D case

---

Development Notes