Information-theoretic security at the physical layer has been proposed to increase the privacy of wireless communications due to its achievable characteristics: unbreakability, provability, and quantifiability. An accurate and powerful analytical framework aimed at deriving the achievable security level provided by Gaussian channels is presented and validated. Its accuracy is assessed by mean of a narrowband fading scenario simulator with multi-antenna transceivers. The impact on the security level of a number of aspects, such as the Eavesdropper's distance as well as the number and distance of antennas in MIMO systems is finally discussed.
Information-theoretic security at the physical layer has been proposed to increase the privacy of wireless communications due to its achievable characteristics: unbreakability, provability, and quantifiability. An accurate and powerful analytical framework aimed at deriving the achievable security level provided by Gaussian channels is presented and validated. Its accuracy is assessed by mean of a narrowband fading scenario simulator with multi-antenna transceivers. The impact on the security level of a number of aspects, such as the Eavesdropper's distance as well as the number and distance of antennas in MIMO systems is finally discussed.
The present work investigates the physical layer security of wireless communication systems over non-homogeneous fading environments, which are typically encountered in realistic wireless transmission scenarios in the context of conventional and emerging communication systems. This is carried out in the context of a single-input multiple-output system that consists of a single-antenna transmitter, a multi-antenna legitimate receiver, and a multi-antenna active eavesdropper. To this end, novel exact analytic expressions are derived for the corresponding average secrecy capacity, which are corroborated by respective results from computer simulations that verify their validity. Capitalizing on the offered results, the physical layer security is quantified in terms of different parameters. This leads to the development of useful insights on the impact of non-homogeneous fading environment and the number of employed antennas on the achieved physical layer security levels of the considered set up.
To investigate the impact of antenna correlation on secrecy performance in MIMO wiretap channels with Nakagami-m fading, the expressions of secrecy outage probability and positive secrecy probability were derived. Diversity order and array gain were also achieved for further insight. The study was based on the information theory that physical layer security can be guaranteed when the quality of the main channel is higher than that of the eavesdropper's channel. Monte Carlo simulations well validated the numerical results of analytic expressions. It was shown that antenna correlation is detrimental to secrecy performance when average SNR of the main channel is at medium and high level. Interestingly, when average SNR of the main channel reduces to low level, the effect of antenna correlation becomes beneficial to secrecy performance.
The present work investigates the physical layer security of wireless communication systems over non-homogeneous fading environments, i.e., η-μ and λ-μ fading models, which are typically encountered in realistic wireless transmission scenarios in the context of conventional and emerging communication systems. This study considers a single-input multiple-output system that consists of a single-antenna transmitter, a multi-antenna legitimate receiver, and an active multi-antenna eavesdropper. To this end, novel exact analytical expressions are derived for the corresponding average secrecy capacity and secrecy outage probability, which are corroborated by respective results from computer simulations. Capitalizing on the offered results, the physical layer security is quantified in terms of different parameters, which leads to useful insights on the impact of non-homogeneous fading environment and the number of employed antennas on the achieved physical layer security levels of the underlying system configuration. The offered results and insights are useful for the design of such systems as well as for the computational requirements and sustainability relating to such systems, since emerging communications are largely characterized by stringent quality of service and complexity requirements.
The current research on physical layer security is far from implementations in practical networks, arguably due to impractical assumptions in the literature and the limited applicability of physical layer security. Aiming to reduce the gap between theory and practice, this thesis focuses on wireless physical layer security towards practical assumptions and requirements. In the first half of the thesis, we reduce the dependence of physical layer security on impractical assumptions. The secrecy enhancements and analysis based on impractical assumptions cannot lead to any true guarantee of secrecy in practical networks. The current study of physical layer security was often based on the idealized assumption of perfect channel knowledge on both legitimate users and eavesdroppers. We study the impact of channel estimation errors on secure transmission designs. We investigate the practical scenarios where both the transmitter and the receiver have imperfect channel state information (CSI). Our results show how the optimal transmission design and the achievable throughput vary with the amount of knowledge on the eavesdropper's channel. Apart from the assumption of perfect CSI, the analysis of physical layer security often ideally assumed the number of eavesdropper antennas to be known. We develop an innovative approach to study secure communication systems without knowing the number of eavesdropper antennas by introducing the concept of spatial constraint into physical layer security. That is, the eavesdropper is assumed to have a limited spatial region to place (possibly an infinite number of) antennas. We show that a non-zero secrecy rate is achievable with the help of a friendly jammer, even if the eavesdropper places an infinite number of antennas in its spatial region. In the second half of the thesis, we improve the applicability of physical layer security. The current physical layer security techniques to achieve confidential broadcasting were limited to application in single-cell systems. The primary challenge to achieve confidential broadcasting in the multi-cell network is to deal with not only the inter-cell but also the intra-cell information leakage and interference. To tackle this challenge, we design linear precoders performing confidential broadcasting in multi-cell networks. We optimize the precoder designs to maximize the secrecy sum rate with based on the large-system analysis. Finally, we improve the applicability of physical layer security from a fundamental aspect. The analysis of physical layer security based on the existing secrecy metric was often not applicable in practical networks. We propose new metrics for evaluating the secrecy of transmissions over fading channels to address the practical limitations of using existing secrecy metrics for such evaluations. The first metric establishes a link between the concept of secrecy outage and the eavesdropper's ability to decode confidential messages. The second metric provides an error-probability-based secrecy metric which is often used for the practical implementation of secure wireless systems. The third metric characterizes how much or how fast the confidential information is leaked to the eavesdropper. We show that the proposed secrecy metrics enable one to appropriately design secure communication systems with different views on how secrecy is measured.
Physical layer security is an important method to improve the secrecy performance of wireless communication systems. In this paper, we analyze the effect of employing channel correlation to improve security performance in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) scenario with antenna selection (AS) scheme. We first derive the analytical expressions of average secrecy capacity (ASC) and secrecy outage probability (SOP) by the first order Marcum Q function. Then, the asymptotic expressions of ASC and SOP in two specific scenarios are further derived. The correctness of analytical and asymptotic expressions is verified by Monte Carlo simulations. The conclusions suggest that the analytical expressions of ASC and SOP are related to the product of transmitting and receiving antennas; increasing the number of antennas is beneficial to ASC and SOP. Besides, when the target rate is set at a low level, strong channel correlation is bad for ASC, but is beneficial to SOP.
The wireless channel is inherently an open medium which exposes wireless communication users to the risk of interception. The vulnerabilities of the wireless channel have led to the search for innovative and efficient security solutions at different levels of the network protocol. In particular, the physical layer level allows for implementing some security functions, such as key generation and exchange, by exploiting the intrinsic randomness of the wireless communication channel. In this paper, we analyze the effect of wireless channel and of antenna characteristics on physical layer security (PLS) key generation. The aim is to put in evidence the relation between physical quantities, such as radio channel characteristics or antenna directivity, with higher level secrecy performance indicators, such as the key mismatch between the different communication nodes and the key randomness. For this purpose, we developed a comprehensive numerical model, which implements all the different steps, from signal generation and wireless propagation modeling to key generation through spectral quantization. The reported results show that the multipath richness of the radio channel, as in outdoor urban scenarios, improves the PLS secrecy performances with respect to simpler propagation scenarios. Moreover, we show that the use of more directive antennas in the legitimate communication link improves secrecy. An opposite effect is achieved when the directivity of the eavesdropper antenna is increased, thus improving its ability to perform passive attacks.