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IEEE Access

On Physical-Layer Security in Multiuser Visible Light Communication Systems With Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access

Xiang Dong Zhao, Hongbin Chen, Jinyong Sun

Published Jan 1, 2018• 49 citations
Publisher

Abstract

In order to improve the security performance of multiuser visible light communication (VLC) and facilitate the secure application of optical wireless communication technology in Internet-of-Things, we investigate the physical-layer security in a multiuser VLC system with non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA). When the light-emitting diode (LED) transmitter communicates with multiple legitimate users by downlink NOMA, both single eavesdropper and multi-eavesdropper scenarios are considered. In the presence of single eavesdropper, based on transmission characteristics of the optical wireless channel, with known instantaneous channel state information (CSI) of the NOMA legitimate channels and statistical CSI of the eavesdropper channel, an exact expression of secrecy outage probability (SOP) is derived, which acts as a benchmark of the security performance to guide selecting or optimizing parameters of the LED transmitter and the photodiode receiver of NOMA legitimate users. In the multi-eavesdropper case, based on the spatial distribution of legitimate users and eavesdroppers, the SOP is obtained via a stochastic geometry theory, so as to guide the NOMA legitimate users to keep away from the area with high eavesdropper density. For typical parameters of the indoor LED transmitter and the PD receiver, simulation results show that the SOP performance improves with the increasing of LED transmission power or transmission signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in both scenarios. Specifically, in the single eavesdropper case, enlarging the channel condition difference of user groups or deviating the eavesdropper from the given user group can improve the SOP performance, and for a given NOMA legitimate user, the SOP eventually settles around 0.2 while the semiangle at half illuminance of the LED varies between 15° to 60°. In the multi-eavesdropper case, we can get a better SOP performance when reducing the eavesdropper density or the semi-angle at half illuminance of the LED for a given eavesdropper density.

DOI
10.1109/access.2018.2847744

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In order to improve the security performance of multiuser visible light communication (VLC) and facilitate the secure application of optical wireless communication technology in Internet-of-Things, we investigate the physical-layer security in a multiuser VLC system with non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA). When the light-emitting diode (LED) transmitter communicates with multiple legitimate users by downlink NOMA, both single eavesdropper and multi-eavesdropper scenarios are considered. In the presence of single eavesdropper, based on transmission characteristics of the optical wireless channel, with known instantaneous channel state information (CSI) of the NOMA legitimate channels and statistical CSI of the eavesdropper channel, an exact expression of secrecy outage probability (SOP) is derived, which acts as a benchmark of the security performance to guide selecting or optimizing parameters of the LED transmitter and the photodiode receiver of NOMA legitimate users. In the multi-eavesdropper case, based on the spatial distribution of legitimate users and eavesdroppers, the SOP is obtained via a stochastic geometry theory, so as to guide the NOMA legitimate users to keep away from the area with high eavesdropper density. For typical parameters of the indoor LED transmitter and the PD receiver, simulation results show that the SOP performance improves with the increasing of LED transmission power or transmission signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in both scenarios. Specifically, in the single eavesdropper case, enlarging the channel condition difference of user groups or deviating the eavesdropper from the given user group can improve the SOP performance, and for a given NOMA legitimate user, the SOP eventually settles around 0.2 while the semiangle at half illuminance of the LED varies between 15° to 60°. In the multi-eavesdropper case, we can get a better SOP performance when reducing the eavesdropper density or the semi-angle at half illuminance of the LED for a given eavesdropper density.
Since successive interference cancellation in non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) is enabled at the strong user to remove the signal of the weak user, if the information safety of the strong user cannot be ensured, neither can the weak user. The physical-layer security of the strong user in a two-user multiple-input single-output (MISO)-NOMA visible light communication (VLC) system in the presence of a passive eavesdropper was studied, with multiple light-emitting diodes (LEDs) transmitting and a photodiode (PD) receiver receiving. To demonstrate the superiority of the MISO-NOMA VLC system over the SISO-NOMA VLC system, numerical simulations were made, and results show that the secrecy outage probability (SOP) performance of the strong user in the MISO-NOMA VLC system is superior to that in the SISO-NOMA VLC system. Furthermore, the SOP of the strong user depends highly on the room arrangement, the difference between the legitimate channel and eavesdropper channel, and the properties of the LEDs and PD.
This work aims to enhance the physical layer security (PLS) of non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) aided indoor visible light communication (VLC) system with semi-grant-free (SGF) transmission scheme, in which a grant-free (GF) user shares the same resource block with a grant-based (GB) user whose quality of service (QoS) must be strictly guaranteed. Besides, the GF user is also provided with an acceptable QoS experience, which is closely aligned with the practical application. Both active and passive eavesdropping attacks are discussed in this work, where users' random distributions are taken into account. Specifically, to maximize the secrecy rate of the GB user in the presence of an active eavesdropper, the optimal power allocation policy is obtained in exact closed-form and the user fairness is then assessed by Jain's fairness index. Moreover, the secrecy outage performance of the GB user is analyzed in the presence of the passive eavesdropping attack. Both exact and asymptotic theoretical expressions for the secrecy outage probability (SOP) of the GB user are derived, respectively. Furthermore, the effective secrecy throughput (EST) is investigated on the basis of the derived SOP expression. Through simulations, it is found that the PLS of this VLC system can be significantly improved by the proposed optimal power allocation scheme. The radius of the protected zone, the outage target rate for the GF user, and the secrecy target rate for the GB user would have pronounced impacts on the PLS and user fairness performance of this SGF-NOMA assisted indoor VLC system. The maximum EST will increase with the increasing transmit power and it is hardly influenced by the target rate for the GF user. This work will benefit the design of indoor VLC system.
Optical wireless communications (OWC) and its potential to solve physical layer security (PLS) issues are becoming important research areas in 6G communications systems. In this paper, an overview of PLS in visible light communications (VLC), is presented. Then, two new PLS techniques based on generalized space shift keying (GSSK) modulation with spatial constellation design (SCD) and non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) cooperative relaying are introduced. In the first technique, the PLS of the system is enhanced by the appropriate selection of a precoding matrix for randomly activated light emitting diodes (LEDs). With the aid of a legitimate user's (Bob's) channel state information (CSI) at the transmitter (CSIT), the bit error ratio (BER) of Bob is minimized while the BER performance of the potential eavesdroppers (Eves) is significantly degraded. In the second technique, superposition coding with uniform signaling is used at the transmitter and relays. The design of secure beamforming vectors at the relay nodes along with NOMA techniques is used to enhance PLS in a VLC system. Insights gained from the improved security levels of the proposed techniques are used to discuss how PLS can be further improved in future generation communication systems by using VLC.
This paper considers improving the confidentiality of visible light communication (VLC) links within the framework of physical-layer security. We study a VLC scenario with one transmitter, one legitimate receiver, and one eavesdropper. The transmitter has multiple light sources, while the legitimate and unauthorized receivers have a single photodetector, each. We characterize secrecy rates achievable via transmit beamforming over the multiple-input, single-output (MISO) VLC wiretap channel. For VLC systems, intensity modulation (IM) via light-emitting diodes (LEDs) is the most practical transmission scheme. Because of the limited dynamic range of typical LEDs, the modulating signal must satisfy certain amplitude constraints. Hence, we begin with deriving lower and upper bounds on the secrecy capacity of the scalar Gaussian wiretap channel subject to amplitude constraints. Then, we utilize beamforming to obtain a closed-form secrecy rate expression for the MISO wiretap channel. Finally, we propose a robust beamforming scheme to consider the scenario wherein information about the eavesdropper's channel is imperfect due to location uncertainty. A typical application of the proposed scheme is to secure the communication link when the eavesdropper is expected to exist within a specified area. The performance is measured in terms of the worst-case secrecy rate guaranteed under all admissible realizations of the eavesdropper's channel.
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In this paper, a novel physical layer security technique is presented for indoor visible light communications (VLC) systems based on optical spatial shift keying (OSSK). Transmitters are equipped with light emitting diode (LED) arrays and in OSSK information is carried only by the LED indices rather than the transmitted symbols themselves. Assuming that the source has the channel state information (CSI) of the optical channel gains between the LEDs and a legitimate user, a pre-equalizer is designed for the transmitter, which transforms the actual channel gains into a new channel realization in which equalized channel coefficients are widely apart from each other in multiple LED fixtures within the power constraint. Since the eavesdropper's channel is not equalized, its bit error rate performance is profoundly degraded. In addition, it is shown that the proposed technique does not need to have the CSI of the eavesdropper. Also an analytical expression is derived to evaluate the capacity of OSSK exactly from which the achievable secrecy capacity of the proposed scheme is obtained easily by computer simulations. In the computer simulations, the channels for different scenarios are generated by Zemax©, which is an optical design software with ray-tracing capabilities. Simulation results show that, as excellent bit error rate (BER) performance is achieved by the legitimate user, the performance of the eavesdropper degrades to a level that it is not possible to receive any meaningful information.