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Concurrency and Computation Practice and Experience

Increasing secret key capacity of OFDM systems: a geometric program approach

Longwang Cheng, Wei Li, Li Zhou, Chunsheng Zhu, Jibo Wei, Yantao Guo

Published Sep 23, 2016• 5 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Summary Extracting secret keys from the common randomness of wireless channels has attracted prominent attention recently. Orthogonal frequency‐division multiplexing (OFDM) systems can provide extra randomness in view of the use of multiple subchannels. So far, the secret key capacity of OFDM systems is still an open issue. In this paper, the secret key capacity of OFDM systems based on the subchannel state information is analyzed, and an expression of the secret key capacity is derived under the assumption that the subchannels are independent. To increase the secret key capacity, a power allocation scheme based on geometric program is proposed. Furthermore, an underlying propagation protocol is designed to realize the power allocation scheme. Performance simulations show that the proposed scheme achieves greater secret key capacity in comparison with equal power allocation scheme, especially at low signal‐to‐noise ratio region. Besides, the secret key bits mismatch rate during the secret key generation based on the power allocated subchannels is decreased.

DOI
10.1002/cpe.3966

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IEEE Transactions on Communications•Apr 7, 2016•137 citations
Summary Extracting secret keys from the common randomness of wireless channels has attracted prominent attention recently. Orthogonal frequency‐division multiplexing (OFDM) systems can provide extra randomness in view of the use of multiple subchannels. So far, the secret key capacity of OFDM systems is still an open issue. In this paper, the secret key capacity of OFDM systems based on the subchannel state information is analyzed, and an expression of the secret key capacity is derived under the assumption that the subchannels are independent. To increase the secret key capacity, a power allocation scheme based on geometric program is proposed. Furthermore, an underlying propagation protocol is designed to realize the power allocation scheme. Performance simulations show that the proposed scheme achieves greater secret key capacity in comparison with equal power allocation scheme, especially at low signal‐to‐noise ratio region. Besides, the secret key bits mismatch rate during the secret key generation based on the power allocated subchannels is decreased.
Physical layer key generation from the wireless channel is an emerging area of interest to provide confidentiality and authentication. One of the main challenges in this domain is to increase the length of the generated secret key while maintaining its randomness and uniformity. In this letter, new dimensions for wireless channel-based key generation are proposed for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. The novel perspective of the proposed work lies in the generation of key bits not only from the magnitudes of OFDM subchannels as it has conventionally been done but also from the number and positions/indices of those subchannels, whose channel gains are above the mean of the respective subblock. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithms is evaluated in terms of key generation rate and key mismatch rate. It is shown in the simulation results that the involvement of the proposed dimensions can double the key generation rate compared to conventional algorithms.
Abstract With the rapid development of wireless communication, the use of the inherent features of wireless channels to enhance and supplement existing security mechanisms has attracted widespread attention. In this work, a key generation scheme based on power allocation optimisation is proposed. The subchannel state information obtained from channel probing is employed to allocate signal power. Furthermore, an improved channel probing process is designed to implement the optimisation scheme of power allocation. Theoretical analysis and simulation results show that this optimisation scheme can obtain higher key capacity, and the superiority is more prominent when the signal‐to‐noise ratio is low. Besides, the key bits mismatch rate of the proposed optimisation scheme is decreased and the corresponding key generation rate is higher compared with the benchmark.
Physical layer key generation from the wireless channel is an emerging area of interest to provide confidentiality and authentication. One of the main challenges in this domain is to increase the length of the secret key while maintaining its randomness and uniformity. In this work, new dimensions for wireless channel-based key generation are proposed for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. The novel perspective of the proposed work lies in the generation of key bits not only from the magnitudes of OFDM subchannels as it has conventionally been done but also from the number and positions of those subchannels whose channel gains are above the mean of the respective subblock. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithms is evaluated in terms of key generation rate and key mismatch rate. Additionally, a statistical test suite offered by the National Institute of Standards and Technology is used to evaluate the randomness of the generated key bits. It is shown in the simulation results that the involvement of the proposed dimensions can double the key generation rate compared to conventional algorithms.
Abstract Generating a secret key from the physical layer is one of the most challenging topics in cryptography. Secret key generation rate (SKGR) and secrecy rate (SR) are two important concepts for any secure communication scheme. In this paper, we first propose a new power allocation strategy to minimize the power consumption under a given SKGR constraint for orthogonal frequency division (OFDM) based communication systems. Due to the non-convex nature of the SKGR expression, we convert the optimization problem into a convex problem. In the continuation of this paper, we investigate the effects of the proposed power allocation strategy on the SR performance. Simulation results demonstrate that using the obtained optimum power vector, which was calculated in the key generation phase, we achieve a better level of SR in the data communication phase. The simulation results also verify that the average SR performance obtained by the proposed method is superior to the geometric programing (GP)-based method.
In this letter, novel algorithms for secret key generation from the wireless channel in multi-carrier systems are proposed for ensuring the confidentiality and authentication in wireless communication systems. The novelty of the proposed algorithms lies in the generation of random secret bits not just from the magnitudes of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) subchannels as it has conventionally been done in the literature, but also from the indices/positions of the subchannels corresponding to highest gains. Thus, the proposed algorithms provide additional dimensions for enhancing overall key rates. The efficiency of the proposed algorithms is evaluated in terms of key mismatch rate (KMR) and key generation rate (KGR). Simulation results showed that the proposed algorithms can enhance the overall performance of physical layer key-based algorithms by providing extra dimensions for secret key generation.
Key generation from the randomness of wireless channels is a promising technique to establish a secret cryptographic key securely between legitimate users. This paper proposes a new approach to extract keys efficiently from the channel responses of individual orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) subcarriers. The efficiency is achieved by: 1) fully exploiting randomness from time and frequency domains and 2) improving the cross-correlation of the channel measurements. Through the theoretical modeling of the time and frequency autocorrelation relationship of the OFDM subcarrier's channel responses, we can obtain the optimal probing rate and use multiple uncorrelated subcarriers as random sources. We also study the effects of non-simultaneous measurements and noise on the cross-correlation of the channel measurements. We find that the cross-correlation is mainly impacted by noise effects in a slow fading channel and use a low-pass filter to reduce the key disagreement rate and extend the system's working signal-to-noise ratio range. The system is evaluated in terms of randomness, key generation rate, and key disagreement rate, verifying that it is feasible to extract randomness from both time and frequency domains of the OFDM subcarrier's channel responses.