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 Middle East Conference on Antennas and Propagation (MECAP)

On secret key generation with massive MIMO antennas using time-frequency-space dimensions

Elias E. Yaacoub

Published Sep 1, 2016• 4 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Kerchoff's principle states that the security of encryption should be based on the key. Thus, increasing the encryption key length has been an essential approach in generating unbreakable ciphers. Recently, physical layer security has gained significant research attention. It allows secure communications between a source and destination without the need to resort to key-based encryption techniques. In this paper, secret key generation using massive multiple input multiple output (MIMO) techniques is investigated. The large number of subcarriers used in orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems is also used to increase the key length. Several scenarios are investigated and corresponding key lengths are calculated. The combination of massive MIMO and OFDMA also allows to simultaneously implement physical layer security techniques while generating large keys for traditional key-based cryptography.

DOI
10.1109/mecap.2016.7790086

Related papers

Physical-layer key generation for multi-user massive MIMO wireless communications

Chen K. Sun, Guyue Li, Hongyi Luo +1 more

This chapter presents a multi-user secret key generation in massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless networks. Physical-layer key generation (PKG) based on channel reciprocity has emerged as a new technique to establish secret keys between devices. However, in future wireless communications, massive antennas will be employed to support multiple users, which bring new challenges to PKG, e.g., low key agreements caused by long-time delay or strong inter-user interference. By harnessing the sparse characteristics of the beam domain channel model, we propose a general channel dimensionality reduction (CDR)-based secret key generation scheme and optimize the parameters of this scheme. The security of this key generation scheme under different user cases of non-overlapping and overlapping beams is then discussed. Some new directions that generalize and improve the basic scenarios for PKG are described. These new directions include multi-cell multi-user secret key generation, PKG in millimeter wave wireless communications, and PKG in frequency division duplexing systems.

•Apr 23, 2024•0 citations

Achieving physical layer security with massive MIMO beamforming

Elias E. Yaacoub, Mohammed Al‐Husseini

Physical layer security allows secure communications between a source and destination without the need to resort to key-based encryption techniques. Its increasing importance stems from the difficulty of implementing advanced encryption techniques in certain networks, such as the internet of things (IoT). In this paper, physical layer security is implemented by using massive multiple input multiple output (MIMO) techniques. Specifically, beamforming with large cylindrical antenna arrays is investigated. These arrays allow the transmission of both the useful signal to the destination and the jamming signal to the eavesdropper without resorting to the help of other nodes for relaying the signal and/or jamming the eavesdropper. Simulation results show that high levels of secrecy capacity can be achieved with the proposed approach.

European Conference on Antennas and Propagation•Mar 1, 2017•25 citations

Key Generation Technique Based on Channel Characteristics for MIMO-OFDM Wireless Communication Systems

Dinh Van Linh, Van Yem Vu

Dynamic secret key generation from wireless channel characteristics is a promising technique for physical layer security. One of the important issues in this field is extending the secret key’s length while preserving its uniformity and randomness. This paper proposes a key generation method based on time-varying and the reciprocity of wireless channels for Multiple-Input Multiple-Output Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (MIMO-OFDM) wireless communication systems. In the proposed technique, the complex impulse response (CIR) of the estimated channel state information (CSI) is extracted, and a quantization algorithm is designed to convert the maximum peaks of the CIR into secret key bits. The effectiveness of the proposed key generation technique is assessed in terms of the randomness of the produced key bits with different key lengths by using a statistical test suite of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The proposed technique is employed in the MIMO-OFDM systems with different modulation schemes through Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) and Rayleigh channels. The simulation results show that the secret keys with various key lengths generated from the proposed technique for the MIMO-OFDM systems guarantee randomness. Moreover, the proposed CSI-based key generation technique provides better effectiveness in terms of security when compared to some existing techniques.

IEEE Access•Jan 1, 2023•27 citations

A MIMO Precoding Based Physical Layer Security Technique for Key Exchange Encryption

Hasan Taha, Emad A. Alsusa

Secret key establishment is considered to be one of the main challenging issues in cryptography. Many security algorithms are implemented in practice using complicated mathematical methods to exchange secret keys, but those methods are not desirable in power limited terminals such as cellular and sensor networks. In this paper, we propose a physical layer method for exchanging secret key bits in precoding based multi-input multi-output (MIMO) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. The proposed method uniquely relates the key bits to the indices of the precoding matrix used for MIMO channel precoding. The basic idea of the technique is to utilize a MIMO-OFDM precoding codebook. Comparative analysis with respect to the average number of mismatch bits, named key error rate (KER), shows an interesting lead for the new method relative to existing work. In addition, it will be shown that the proposed technique requires lower computation per byte per secret key.

IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference•May 1, 2015•16 citations

Scramble-Based Secret Key Generation Algorithm in Physical Layer Security

Dan Wang, Feng Chen, Yongtai Chen +2 more

As a new way to enhance wireless communication security, secret key generation based on physical layer channel characteristics has emerged. In this paper, we propose a novel secret key generation algorithm based on wireless channel characteristics for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) communication systems. The mean quantization algorithm is applied to quantize the real part and imaginary part of OFDM subcarriers, respectively, which can significantly increase the length of the generated secret key in the OFDM system. To reduce the consistency between the secret keys generated by the eavesdropper and the legitimate communication nodes, a processing method by taking the subcarrier phase as initialization of a scrambling code and scrambling the quantized result is proposed. The simulation and test results show that compared with the existing research, the proposed algorithm can improve the key generation rate (KGR), reduce the key mismatch rate (KMR) and complexity, maintain high randomness, and disturb the eavesdroppers.

Mobile Information Systems•Oct 4, 2022•1 citation

Practical Physical Layer Security Schemes for MIMO-OFDM Systems Using Precoding Matrix Indices

Chih-Yao Wu, Pang-Chang Lan, Ping‐Cheng Yeh +2 more

In physical-layer security, secret bits are extracted from wireless channels. With the assumption of channel reciprocity, the legitimate users share the same channel which is independent of the channels between the legitimate users and the eavesdropper, leading to secure transmissions. However, practical implementation of the physical layer security faces many challenges. First, for the correlated channel such as the multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) channel, the security is decreased due to the correlation between the generated secret bits. Second, the nearby eavesdropper posts a security threat due to observing the same channel as the legitimate user's. Third, the eavesdroppers might try to reconstruct the wireless environments. In this paper, we propose two practical physical layer security schemes for the MIMO orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (MIMO-OFDM) systems: the precoding matrix index (PMI)-based secret key generation with rotation matrix (MOPRO) and the channel quantization-based (MOCHA) scheme. The former utilizes PMI and rotated reference signals to prevent the eavesdroppers from learning the secret key information and the latter applies channel quantization in order to extract more secret key bits. It is shown that not only the secure communication but also the MIMO gain can be guaranteed by using the proposed schemes.

IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications•Aug 23, 2013•86 citations
Kerchoff's principle states that the security of encryption should be based on the key. Thus, increasing the encryption key length has been an essential approach in generating unbreakable ciphers. Recently, physical layer security has gained significant research attention. It allows secure communications between a source and destination without the need to resort to key-based encryption techniques. In this paper, secret key generation using massive multiple input multiple output (MIMO) techniques is investigated. The large number of subcarriers used in orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems is also used to increase the key length. Several scenarios are investigated and corresponding key lengths are calculated. The combination of massive MIMO and OFDMA also allows to simultaneously implement physical layer security techniques while generating large keys for traditional key-based cryptography.
This chapter presents a multi-user secret key generation in massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless networks. Physical-layer key generation (PKG) based on channel reciprocity has emerged as a new technique to establish secret keys between devices. However, in future wireless communications, massive antennas will be employed to support multiple users, which bring new challenges to PKG, e.g., low key agreements caused by long-time delay or strong inter-user interference. By harnessing the sparse characteristics of the beam domain channel model, we propose a general channel dimensionality reduction (CDR)-based secret key generation scheme and optimize the parameters of this scheme. The security of this key generation scheme under different user cases of non-overlapping and overlapping beams is then discussed. Some new directions that generalize and improve the basic scenarios for PKG are described. These new directions include multi-cell multi-user secret key generation, PKG in millimeter wave wireless communications, and PKG in frequency division duplexing systems.
Physical layer security allows secure communications between a source and destination without the need to resort to key-based encryption techniques. Its increasing importance stems from the difficulty of implementing advanced encryption techniques in certain networks, such as the internet of things (IoT). In this paper, physical layer security is implemented by using massive multiple input multiple output (MIMO) techniques. Specifically, beamforming with large cylindrical antenna arrays is investigated. These arrays allow the transmission of both the useful signal to the destination and the jamming signal to the eavesdropper without resorting to the help of other nodes for relaying the signal and/or jamming the eavesdropper. Simulation results show that high levels of secrecy capacity can be achieved with the proposed approach.
Dynamic secret key generation from wireless channel characteristics is a promising technique for physical layer security. One of the important issues in this field is extending the secret key’s length while preserving its uniformity and randomness. This paper proposes a key generation method based on time-varying and the reciprocity of wireless channels for Multiple-Input Multiple-Output Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (MIMO-OFDM) wireless communication systems. In the proposed technique, the complex impulse response (CIR) of the estimated channel state information (CSI) is extracted, and a quantization algorithm is designed to convert the maximum peaks of the CIR into secret key bits. The effectiveness of the proposed key generation technique is assessed in terms of the randomness of the produced key bits with different key lengths by using a statistical test suite of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The proposed technique is employed in the MIMO-OFDM systems with different modulation schemes through Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) and Rayleigh channels. The simulation results show that the secret keys with various key lengths generated from the proposed technique for the MIMO-OFDM systems guarantee randomness. Moreover, the proposed CSI-based key generation technique provides better effectiveness in terms of security when compared to some existing techniques.
Secret key establishment is considered to be one of the main challenging issues in cryptography. Many security algorithms are implemented in practice using complicated mathematical methods to exchange secret keys, but those methods are not desirable in power limited terminals such as cellular and sensor networks. In this paper, we propose a physical layer method for exchanging secret key bits in precoding based multi-input multi-output (MIMO) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. The proposed method uniquely relates the key bits to the indices of the precoding matrix used for MIMO channel precoding. The basic idea of the technique is to utilize a MIMO-OFDM precoding codebook. Comparative analysis with respect to the average number of mismatch bits, named key error rate (KER), shows an interesting lead for the new method relative to existing work. In addition, it will be shown that the proposed technique requires lower computation per byte per secret key.
As a new way to enhance wireless communication security, secret key generation based on physical layer channel characteristics has emerged. In this paper, we propose a novel secret key generation algorithm based on wireless channel characteristics for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) communication systems. The mean quantization algorithm is applied to quantize the real part and imaginary part of OFDM subcarriers, respectively, which can significantly increase the length of the generated secret key in the OFDM system. To reduce the consistency between the secret keys generated by the eavesdropper and the legitimate communication nodes, a processing method by taking the subcarrier phase as initialization of a scrambling code and scrambling the quantized result is proposed. The simulation and test results show that compared with the existing research, the proposed algorithm can improve the key generation rate (KGR), reduce the key mismatch rate (KMR) and complexity, maintain high randomness, and disturb the eavesdroppers.
In physical-layer security, secret bits are extracted from wireless channels. With the assumption of channel reciprocity, the legitimate users share the same channel which is independent of the channels between the legitimate users and the eavesdropper, leading to secure transmissions. However, practical implementation of the physical layer security faces many challenges. First, for the correlated channel such as the multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) channel, the security is decreased due to the correlation between the generated secret bits. Second, the nearby eavesdropper posts a security threat due to observing the same channel as the legitimate user's. Third, the eavesdroppers might try to reconstruct the wireless environments. In this paper, we propose two practical physical layer security schemes for the MIMO orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (MIMO-OFDM) systems: the precoding matrix index (PMI)-based secret key generation with rotation matrix (MOPRO) and the channel quantization-based (MOCHA) scheme. The former utilizes PMI and rotated reference signals to prevent the eavesdroppers from learning the secret key information and the latter applies channel quantization in order to extract more secret key bits. It is shown that not only the secure communication but also the MIMO gain can be guaranteed by using the proposed schemes.