Joshua Smailes

Joshua Smailes

Doctoral Student

Research Associate

Career Development Research Fellow, St John's College

Student, St Anne's College

E: firstname.lastname@cs.ox.ac.uk

Department of Computer Science,
Robert Hooke Building
Directions Postal Address

Themes:

Security

Interests

My research interests lie in the area of cyber-physical system security, with a particular focus on improving the security of satellite communication. My current research is in the following areas: using transmitter fingerprints to detect and mitigate attacks at the physical layer, using network simulation to improve the security of protocols in large-scale satellite networks, and monitoring satellite communication at the physical layer.

Past and ongoing work has focused on developing techniques for physical layer fingerprinting, which can be used to identify satellite transmitters by analysing characteristics of the physical radio signal. This approach provides additional security, and is particularly useful in securing legacy systems which lack sufficient protection via cryptography. I am interested in expanding our satellite monitoring capabilities to support this and other projects, by building new systems for measuring and recording satellite communication across a wide range of frequencies.

I also work to adapt protocols for use in interplanetary networks (e.g. routing, key management), facilitating seamless communication between the terrestrial internet and upcoming interplanetary networks. This work has led to the release of the Deep Space Network Simulator (DSNS): a generalised network simulator capable of simulating large interplanetary networks, which has already enabled a number of interesting research topics. More details on the simulator can be found here.

If you are interested in collaborating, or if you are a student looking for a Part B/C/MSc project, feel free to reach out by email.

Biography

Joshua is a Career Development Research Fellow with St John's College, and a Junior Research Fellow at the Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford. Previously, he studied as a DPhil student at the University of Oxford under the supervision of Prof. Ivan Martinovic, during which time he taught students at St Anne's College. He is currently teaching at St John's College, continuing his research into satellite communication security, and co-supervising a number of DPhil and undergraduate student projects.

Awards

(2025) CSAW Applied Research Competition: 1st Place
(2023) Digital Avionics Systems Conference: Best of Session
(2023) ACM Conference on Security and Privacy in Wireless Networks: Best Paper (Runner Up)
(2021) ACM Cyber-Physical System Security Workshop: Best Paper