International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering

Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal, Volume 2, Issue 12, December 2012)

A Simple Cryptography Algorithm for Microcontroller

Zainul Abidin1, Adharul Muttaqin2
Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Brawijaya, Malang, Indonesia
Abstract Data security is very important in data
transmission. There are many methods to make the data to
be secure. One of the methods is by using cryptography
algorithm to encrypt the data. Using the cryptography
algorithm, no one can take the true information except the
one with right key and decryption method. In data security
processing, microcontroller can be used as a processor. In
this paper, a simple cryptography algorithm for
microcontroller was proposed for data (text) encryption and
decryption. This algorithm can encrypt text (8 characters)
with 8 key characters. The encrypted text (chipertext) can
be decrypted to the original text (plaintext) by using the
same key entered in encryption process. Experiment results
show that the algorithm can work properly with error
percentage of 0%.

Start
Initialization of string Pi,
char key, new_key, text,
text_encr, data_receiv,
data_decr

Enter key

Keywords- data security, microcontroller, cryptography

I.

INTRODUCTION

II.

No

Yes

Enter text

Scan
keypad

Scan
keypad

Encryption

Key
expansion

Display
text_encr

Display key and

new_key
(expanded key)

Cryptography is the art and science of keeping secure

messages (Schneier, 1995). Someone who wants to take
the messages (plaintext) is called as attacker or
eavesdropper. Usually, attacker has complete access to a
communication line between sender and receiver.
Attacking of internet and telephone network is often
happened. In some cases, serial communication using
microcontroller has difficulty of cryptography algorithm.
The algorithm must be simple and strong.
Microcontroller has limitation of processing memory and
mathematics function. A simple cryptography algorithm
for microcontroller to support serial communication of
text transmission was proposed to solve the problems.

Receive data

Decryption

Display
data_decr
Send text

End

Figure 1. Flowchart of Main Program

The key must be computed first before encryption and

decryption process. The key expansion process is shown
in flowchart of Figure 2 with detail explanation as
mention below:
1. Initialize Pi with static string which consists of 16
hexadecimal digits. There are 20 string Pi in this
process as mention below:

MATERIALS AND METHOD

A. Main Program
Main program consists of sub functions, such as scan
keypad, key expansion, encryption, decryption. The main
program flowchart is shown in Figure 1. Process of
sending and receiving is described in the flowchart. The
process indicates text transmission using serial
communication based on microcontroller.

P1 =0x243f6a882ffd72db
P11=0xbe5466cf636920d8
P2 =0x85a308d3d01adfb7 P12=0x34e90c6c71574e69
P3 =0x13198a2eb8e1afed
P13=0xc0ac29b7a458fea3
P4 =0x037073446a267e96 P14=0xc97c50ddf4933d7e
P5 =0xa4093822ba7c9045 P15=0x3f84d5b50d95748f
P6 =0x299f31d0f12c7f99
P16=0xb5470917728eb658
P7 =0x082efa9824a19947
P17=0x9216d5d9718bcd58
P8 =0xec4e6c89 b3916cf7 P18=0x8979fb1b82154aee
P9 =0x452821e60801f2e2 P19=0xd1310ba67b54a41d
P10=0x38d01377858efc16 P20=0x98dfb5acc25a59b5
2. Key (entered by user) which is 8 characters will be
changed into 16 hexadecimal digits based on ASCII

B. Key Expansion
In this algorithm, key expansion is a process of
randomization the original key to new key.

672

International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering

Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal, Volume 2, Issue 12, December 2012)
3.

4.

XOR operation of Pi with 64 bits key must be

executed, do XOR P2 with 64 bits first XOR result,
do similar process until P20, and then 64 bits new key
will be obtained.
The new key will be saved into New_key and user
can do encryption or decryption.

Start
Initialization of
Int i, i=1

i=21

yes

Start
no

text^=new_key

text_encr=text

Initialization of
Int i
text+=0x0101010101010101

For (i=1,i<21,i++)

i++

no

yes

key^=Pi

End

New_key=key

Figure 3. Flowchart of Encryption

2.
3.
End

4.
Figure 2. Flowchart of Key Expansion

A. Encryption
Encryption process consists of 20 simple function
iterations. Each iteration consists of XOR operations and
additions of 64 bits. The encryption process is shown in
flowchart of Figure 3 with detail explanation as mention
below:
1. Text message (8 characters) is changed to
hexadecimal.
2. Do XOR operation for the hexadecimal with new
key and then add to 0x0101010101010101.
3. Do similar process for the result until 20th iteration.
4. Chipertext is obtained and ready to be secure.

Then, do XOR operation with new key

Do similar process for the result until 20th iteration
and then hexadecimal of plaintext is obtained
The hexadecimal is converted to text message that
can be read by user who have right key and suitable
decryption algorithm.

C. Decryption
Decryption process is the opposite of ecryption
process that consists of XOR operations and subtractions.
The decryption process is shown in flowchart of Figure
4 with detail explanation as mention below:
1. Received data (chipertext) is converted to
hexadecimal
and
the
subtracted
by
0x0101010101010101
Figure 4. Flowchart of Decryption

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International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering

Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal, Volume 2, Issue 12, December 2012)
D. Data Format
Data format in this cryptography algorithm is designed
uniquely. This can make easier to receive and recognize
the encrypted text. There is a process for recognize the
first character. The recognition determines start sign and
end sign of text to decrease error probability. The data
format is shown in Figure 6.

Head

Text/message

Tail
(a)

Dot (.)

xxxxxxxx

Figure 6. Data Format

There are 3 parts in the data format.

Head : signed by character . which is placed at
first slot. It defines that next character is first text
character.
Text/message : consists of 8 characters (16
hexadecimal digits)
Tail : signed by character @ which is placed at
last slot. It defines that the last text character is
before this character.
III.

(b)
Fig. 7 Experiment results
(a) Encryption result,
(b) Decryption result with true key

C. Experiment of Decryption by Using False Key

Experiment result of false key implementation also
shows in LCD. Figure 8 is the LCD appearance that
consists of encrypted text (1st line) and decryption result
(2nd line). Comparing Figure 7(a) and 8, it can be
concluded that encryption and decryption process can not
work properly with unsuitable key. The decryption result
is not similar with the true text/message. People who do
not know the right key and the implemented algorithm
will not get the true information.

RESULTS AND D ISCUSSIONS

Experiment of this cryptography algorithm proves

performance of the implementation. Experiment is based
on condition explained below.
A. Experiment of Encryption
Experiment data is obtained by observe ecryption
process result and decryption process result. Text before
encrypted must be similar with the one after decrypted.
For example, the experiment uses 8 characters of
ZAINUL A as the key. There is text message that
consists of SRP SBH!. The text must be typed
appropriate to data format rule (Fig. 6). The text and
ecrypted text can be seen in Fig 7 (a). It seems that
almost all characters are converted to strange characters.
B. Experiment of Decryption by Using True Key
Experiment result of true key implementation shows in
LCD. Figure 7(b) is the LCD appearance that consists of
encrypted text (1st line) and decryption result (2nd line).
Comparing Figure 7(a) and 7(b), it can be concluded that
encryption and decryption process can work properly
with suitable key (ZAINUL A).

Fig. 8 Decryption result with false key

674

International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering

Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal, Volume 2, Issue 12, December 2012)
TABLE 1
EXPERIMENT OF SIMPLE CRYPTOGRAPHY IMPLEMENTATION

Experiment
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

True decrypted text

8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8

In the future, advanced cryptography algorithm for

longer text will be developed for text transmission and
compared to other cryptography algorithms, such as
blowfish, RAS, and DES.

% error
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0

REFERENCES
[1 ] Atmel, 1997, Flash Microcontroller: Architectural Overview,
Atmel Inc. (http://www.atmel.com), USA.
[2 ] Helfrick, D. Albert., and Cooper, W.D., 1992. Electronic
Instrumentation and Measurement Techniques. Prentice Hall of
India Limited, New Delhi.
[3 ] Muttaqin, A. and Abidin, Z., 2008. Implementasi Kriptografi
Transmisi Teks Menggunakan Mikrokontroler. EECCIS, vol. II,
no. 1: 17-21.
[4 ] Schneier, B., 1995. Applied Cryptography-Protocols, Algorithms,
and Source Code in C, 2nd. New York. John Wiley & Son.

Experiments of cryptography implementation are

executed 10 times. The result is shown in Table 1. Table
1 indicates that the simple cryptography algorithm can
work properly in microcontroller with error percentage of
0%.
IV.

CONCLUSIONS AND F UTURE W ORK

In this paper, a simple cryptography algorithm for

microcontroller has been proposed and examined. The
proposed algorithm consists of hexadecimal-character
conversion, XOR operation, addition, and subtraction.
The proposed algorithm has been successfully
implemented to microcontroller. The experiment results
show that it can work properly with error percentage of
0%.

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