A PAN is a small, heterogeneous, ad hoc network with devices like a laptop, a mobile cellphone, a PDA, ... The best example of a system for PAN is Bluetooth. It is very important that these kind of networks are safe to use (for example, you don't want that other persons can steal your emails from your laptop).
This is absolutely not an easy problem to solve because of the characteristics (low amount of energy, not much computational power, ...) and the security demands (assurance of location privacy, anonimity, ...) of Personal Area Networks. The consequence is that new protocols have to be invented. Once these new protocols are created, they have to be analysed. Part of this analysis will be done formally (using methods like Dolev-Yao, BAN, ...). After this analysis, the designed security architecture will be integrated with existing systems like Bluetooth. Other mobile networks like UMTS and WLAN will be be investigated too in my Phd.
Supervisor:
Prof.Dr. Bart Preneel