Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

IEEE International Conference on Acoustics Speech and Signal Processing

Precoding for secret key generation in multiple antenna channels with statistical channel state information

Sabrina Engelmann, Anne Wolf, Eduard Axel Jorswieck

Published May 1, 2014• 5 citations
Publisher

Abstract

In future wireless communication systems, more and more small low-power mobile devices will communicate without infrastructure and internet access. In order to provide a lightweight yet powerful security mechanism, physical layer parameters can be used to generate secret keys for perfect secrecy. In this paper, we study the optimal operation of a multiple antenna link with statistical channel state information at all nodes for secret key generation. The impact of spatial correlation on the achievable secret key rates is characterized. Furthermore, the optimal pilot precoding during channel estimation is computed. Numerical simulations illustrate the results for selected scenarios.

DOI
10.1109/icassp.2014.6853866

Related papers

Secret key generation from reciprocal spatially correlated MIMO channels

Eduard Axel Jorswieck, Anne Wolf, Sabrina Engelmann

Secret key generation from reciprocal multi-antenna channels is an interesting alternative to cryptographic key management in wireless systems without infrastructure access. In this work, we study the secret key rate for the basic source model with a MIMO channel. First, we derive an expression for the secret key rate under spatial correlation modelled by the Kronecker model and with spatial precoding at both communication nodes. Next, we analyze the result for uncorrelated antennas to understand the optimal precoding for this special case, which is equal power allocation. Then, the impact of correlation is characterized using Majorization theory. Surprisingly for small SNR, spatial correlation increases the secret key rate. For high SNR, the maximum secret key rate is achieved for uncorrelated antennas. The results indicate that a solid system design for reciprocal MIMO key generation is required to establish the secret key rate gains.

IEEE Globecom Workshops (GC Wkshps)•Dec 1, 2013•38 citations

Fast and Efficient Physical Layer Secret Key Generation over Static Wireless Channels

Jie Tang, Ruifei Wang, Huan Song +1 more

Recently, shared secret key generation from wireless channel characteristics has attracted a lot of attention due to its low computational overhead. However, in a static environment, the secret key rate is relatively lower due to the lack of channel time-variation. In this paper, we propose a lightweight and efficient PLKG scheme for static channels. Different from current schemes, in the proposed scheme, the transmitter attaches the information of the secret key into the downlink pilot signals to the legitimate receiver by the proposed secret precoding. At the receiving end, the legitimate receiver can directly observe the correct information of secret key from the public downlink pilot signals, while keeping perfect secrecy of the generated key against eavesdroppers. The key principle lies in that the information of the secret key is coded in the index of the non-activated MIMO (multiple-input-multiple-output) sub-channel. Consequently, only the legitimate receiver can accurately observe the value of the key information. For any other eavesdroppers who suffer an independent channel from the legitimate transmitter and receiver, it is proven that she cannot observe any key information from her received signals. Therefore, the key rate can be improved for the static channels by increasing the symbol rate of the pilot signals. Simulations are conducted to validate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.

IEEE International Conference on Computer and Communications (ICCC)•Dec 10, 2021•8 citations

Secret key generation in MIMO wireless systems using precoded channel measurements

Saygın Bakşi, Dimitrie C. Popescu

Secret key generation using channel measurements has emerged as a meaningful approach to enhance the security of a wireless link at the physical layer. This paper presents a novel approach to key generation based on precoding of the MIMO channel measurements, that does not require information on the channel statistics and has the ability to generate key bits at a rate that is independent of the channel coherence time. The proposed approach is illustrated with numerical results obtained from simulations showing the probability of bit disagreement between keys generated at transmitter/receiver side and Slepian-Wolf encoding with LDPC codes is used for key reconciliation.

IEEE International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC)•Oct 1, 2017•4 citations

Sum Secret Key Rate Maximization for TDD Multi-User Massive MIMO Wireless Networks

Guyue Li, Chen K. Sun, Eduard Axel Jorswieck +3 more

Physical-layer key generation (PKG) based on channel reciprocity has recently emerged as a new technique to establish secret keys between devices. Most works focus on pairwise communication scenarios with single or small-scale antennas. However, the fifth generation (5G) wireless communications employ massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) to support multiple users simultaneously, bringing serious overhead of reciprocal channel acquisition. This paper presents a multi-user secret key generation in massive MIMO wireless networks. We provide a beam domain channel model, in which different elements represent the channel gains from different transmit directions to different receive directions. Based on this channel model, we analyze the secret key rate and derive a closed-form expression under independent channel conditions. To maximize the sum secret key rate, we provide the optimal conditions for the Kronecker product of the precoding and receiving matrices and propose an algorithm to generate these matrices with pilot reuse. The proposed optimization design can significantly reduce the pilot overhead of the reciprocal channel state information acquisition. Furthermore, we analyze the security under the channel correlation between user terminals (UTs), and propose a low overhead multi-user secret key generation with non-overlapping beams between UTs. Simulation results demonstrate the near-optimal performance of the proposed precoding and receiving matrices design and the advantages of the non-overlapping beam allocation.

arXiv:2009.09142•IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security•Sep 24, 2020•53 citations

Enhancing Secret Key Generation in Low-Mobility Scenarios by Locally Generated Pilots

Thuy M. Pham, Arsenia Chorti, Gerhard Paul Fettweis +1 more

In this paper, we study the performance of a practical secret key generation method under low-mobility scenarios. Instead of relying on traditional cryptographic methods or leveraging spatial diversity and reconfigurable intelligent surfaces to increase channel variations, we utilize locally generated pilots to add randomness to the system, thus in turn helping to increase the secret key rate. The results demonstrate significant improvements over the original channels, whose entropy source mainly relies on mobility and channel variations. More importantly, this scheme works well without extra helpers or multiple antennas, thus providing a potential for developing reliable, lightweight security solutions for resource-constrained devices in practice.

IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference•Oct 19, 2025•0 citations

Secret Group-Key Generation at Physical Layer for Multi-Antenna Mesh Topology

Chan Dai Truyen Thai, Jemin Lee, Jay Prakash +1 more

In this paper, we propose a secret group-key generation scheme in physical layer, where an arbitrary number of multi-antenna LNs (LN) exist in mesh topology with a multi-antenna passive eavesdropper. In the first phase of the scheme, pilot signals are transmitted from selected antennas of all nodes and each node estimates channels linked to it. In the second phase, each node sequentially broadcasts a weighted combination of the estimated channel information using selected coefficients. The other LNs can obtain the channel information used for group-key generation while the eavesdropper cannot. Each node then can generate a group key by quantizing and encoding the estimated channels into keys. We apply well-known quantization schemes, such as scalar and vector quantizations, and compare their performance. To further enhance the key-generation performance, we also provide how to determine the antennas at each node used for group-key generation and the coefficients used in the broadcast phase. The simulation results verify the performance of the proposed secret group-key generation scheme using various key-related metrics. We also verify the practical robustness of our scheme by implementing a testbed using universal software radio peripheral. After generating secret common key among three nodes, we also test it using the National Institute of Standards and Technology test suit. The generated key passes the test and it is random enough for communication secrecy.

IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security•May 17, 2018•56 citations
In future wireless communication systems, more and more small low-power mobile devices will communicate without infrastructure and internet access. In order to provide a lightweight yet powerful security mechanism, physical layer parameters can be used to generate secret keys for perfect secrecy. In this paper, we study the optimal operation of a multiple antenna link with statistical channel state information at all nodes for secret key generation. The impact of spatial correlation on the achievable secret key rates is characterized. Furthermore, the optimal pilot precoding during channel estimation is computed. Numerical simulations illustrate the results for selected scenarios.
Secret key generation from reciprocal multi-antenna channels is an interesting alternative to cryptographic key management in wireless systems without infrastructure access. In this work, we study the secret key rate for the basic source model with a MIMO channel. First, we derive an expression for the secret key rate under spatial correlation modelled by the Kronecker model and with spatial precoding at both communication nodes. Next, we analyze the result for uncorrelated antennas to understand the optimal precoding for this special case, which is equal power allocation. Then, the impact of correlation is characterized using Majorization theory. Surprisingly for small SNR, spatial correlation increases the secret key rate. For high SNR, the maximum secret key rate is achieved for uncorrelated antennas. The results indicate that a solid system design for reciprocal MIMO key generation is required to establish the secret key rate gains.
Recently, shared secret key generation from wireless channel characteristics has attracted a lot of attention due to its low computational overhead. However, in a static environment, the secret key rate is relatively lower due to the lack of channel time-variation. In this paper, we propose a lightweight and efficient PLKG scheme for static channels. Different from current schemes, in the proposed scheme, the transmitter attaches the information of the secret key into the downlink pilot signals to the legitimate receiver by the proposed secret precoding. At the receiving end, the legitimate receiver can directly observe the correct information of secret key from the public downlink pilot signals, while keeping perfect secrecy of the generated key against eavesdroppers. The key principle lies in that the information of the secret key is coded in the index of the non-activated MIMO (multiple-input-multiple-output) sub-channel. Consequently, only the legitimate receiver can accurately observe the value of the key information. For any other eavesdroppers who suffer an independent channel from the legitimate transmitter and receiver, it is proven that she cannot observe any key information from her received signals. Therefore, the key rate can be improved for the static channels by increasing the symbol rate of the pilot signals. Simulations are conducted to validate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.
Secret key generation using channel measurements has emerged as a meaningful approach to enhance the security of a wireless link at the physical layer. This paper presents a novel approach to key generation based on precoding of the MIMO channel measurements, that does not require information on the channel statistics and has the ability to generate key bits at a rate that is independent of the channel coherence time. The proposed approach is illustrated with numerical results obtained from simulations showing the probability of bit disagreement between keys generated at transmitter/receiver side and Slepian-Wolf encoding with LDPC codes is used for key reconciliation.
Physical-layer key generation (PKG) based on channel reciprocity has recently emerged as a new technique to establish secret keys between devices. Most works focus on pairwise communication scenarios with single or small-scale antennas. However, the fifth generation (5G) wireless communications employ massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) to support multiple users simultaneously, bringing serious overhead of reciprocal channel acquisition. This paper presents a multi-user secret key generation in massive MIMO wireless networks. We provide a beam domain channel model, in which different elements represent the channel gains from different transmit directions to different receive directions. Based on this channel model, we analyze the secret key rate and derive a closed-form expression under independent channel conditions. To maximize the sum secret key rate, we provide the optimal conditions for the Kronecker product of the precoding and receiving matrices and propose an algorithm to generate these matrices with pilot reuse. The proposed optimization design can significantly reduce the pilot overhead of the reciprocal channel state information acquisition. Furthermore, we analyze the security under the channel correlation between user terminals (UTs), and propose a low overhead multi-user secret key generation with non-overlapping beams between UTs. Simulation results demonstrate the near-optimal performance of the proposed precoding and receiving matrices design and the advantages of the non-overlapping beam allocation.
In this paper, we study the performance of a practical secret key generation method under low-mobility scenarios. Instead of relying on traditional cryptographic methods or leveraging spatial diversity and reconfigurable intelligent surfaces to increase channel variations, we utilize locally generated pilots to add randomness to the system, thus in turn helping to increase the secret key rate. The results demonstrate significant improvements over the original channels, whose entropy source mainly relies on mobility and channel variations. More importantly, this scheme works well without extra helpers or multiple antennas, thus providing a potential for developing reliable, lightweight security solutions for resource-constrained devices in practice.
In this paper, we propose a secret group-key generation scheme in physical layer, where an arbitrary number of multi-antenna LNs (LN) exist in mesh topology with a multi-antenna passive eavesdropper. In the first phase of the scheme, pilot signals are transmitted from selected antennas of all nodes and each node estimates channels linked to it. In the second phase, each node sequentially broadcasts a weighted combination of the estimated channel information using selected coefficients. The other LNs can obtain the channel information used for group-key generation while the eavesdropper cannot. Each node then can generate a group key by quantizing and encoding the estimated channels into keys. We apply well-known quantization schemes, such as scalar and vector quantizations, and compare their performance. To further enhance the key-generation performance, we also provide how to determine the antennas at each node used for group-key generation and the coefficients used in the broadcast phase. The simulation results verify the performance of the proposed secret group-key generation scheme using various key-related metrics. We also verify the practical robustness of our scheme by implementing a testbed using universal software radio peripheral. After generating secret common key among three nodes, we also test it using the National Institute of Standards and Technology test suit. The generated key passes the test and it is random enough for communication secrecy.