BlueSky: Physical Access Control: Characteristics, Challenges, and Research Opportunities

Physical access control (PAC) is an integral part of the physical security system of any organization. However, despite the size of the PAC industry and its importance in securing our physical environments, public research and development regarding PAC are limited. This paper aims to lower the barriers for the access control research community to explore and engage in the research opportunities regarding PAC systems. We characterize PAC systems and present an access control architecture that captures their central concepts, such as physical space models and different levels of policies, and processes such as policy conversion, enforcement, and analysis. We discuss how PAC can be distinguished from logical access control (LAC), which is applicable to cyber environments. We also present several unique challenges and research opportunities that the PAC domain introduces.