This paper proposes a method to provide secrecy for digital communications with arbitrarily large quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) constellations for transmission over a Gaussian fading wiretap channel. This is accomplished by breaking the constellation down into nested quadrature phase-shift keying (QPSK) symbols and randomizing the assignment between message bits and modulated symbols using channel state information (CSI). If enough random bits can be generated from CSI it becomes possible to uniquely map an arbitrary message to any symbol in the large QAM constellation. The proposed method can thereby provide perfect secrecy while maintaining high reliability by exclusively assigning minimum-distance-mapped constellations through the randomization for use by the legitimate decoder.
This paper proposes a method to provide secrecy for digital communications with arbitrarily large quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) constellations for transmission over a Gaussian fading wiretap channel. This is accomplished by breaking the constellation down into nested quadrature phase-shift keying (QPSK) symbols and randomizing the assignment between message bits and modulated symbols using channel state information (CSI). If enough random bits can be generated from CSI it becomes possible to uniquely map an arbitrary message to any symbol in the large QAM constellation. The proposed method can thereby provide perfect secrecy while maintaining high reliability by exclusively assigning minimum-distance-mapped constellations through the randomization for use by the legitimate decoder.
Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems have enjoyed widespread adoption as the physical layer standard for high data rate wired and wireless networks, due to their ability to efficiently cope with slowly varying dispersive channels. Therefore in searching for feasible implementations of physical layer security techniques, it is appropriate to analyze how existing information theoretic results can be applied to the OFDM structure This paper considers the information theoretic secrecy rates that are achievable in a wiretap OFDM channel when transmitting quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) constellation symbols. The loss with respect to the secrecy rates obtained with Gaussian distributed inputs is evaluated for both nite constellation cardinalities and in the asymptotic approximation of arbitrarily high cardinality. Moving from the insight gained with this analysis, we propose bit-loading strategies to efficiently allocate the appropriate number of bits in each subchannel, by considering the twofold objective of minimizing the loss with respect to the Gaussian input secrecy capacity and minimizing the total bit load.
Physical-layer security could efficiently prevent wiretapping for wireless communication from the information-theoretic perspective. However, most related works in this area are based on the assumption of Gaussian inputs, which are impractical for a practical communication system. In this paper, we study the physical-layer security with finite-alphabet inputs, wherein amplitude phase shift keying (APSK) constellation is considered to improve the achievable secrecy rate performance. It is concluded that the secrecy rate can be improved by using APSK, comparing to its quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) counterpart, which is verified by both the minimum mean square error (MMSE) theoretic derivation and simulation results. A specific strategy of selecting constellation orders for secure communication is also presented.
Abstract In this article, we propose a random quadrature spatial modulation (RQSM) scheme to achieve secure transmission in multiple‐input multiple‐output multiantenna eavesdropper channels. We consider the case in which the eavesdropper has more antennas than that of the legitimate receiver, leading to a strong wiretap channel. In this case, the conventional secure quadrature spatial modulation schemes based on the artificially interfering signals are vulnerable to eavesdropping. On the contrary, the proposed RQSM scheme is able to achieve the physical‐layer security without transmitting artificial noises. Specifically, the bits‐to‐symbol mapping of the proposed RQSM is randomized according to the instantaneous channel state information of the legitimate link. Since in a rich scattering environment, the legitimate and the wiretap channels are generally independent of each other due to the spatial decorrelation property. Thus, the eavesdropper can be considered ignorant of the legitimate channel and cannot decode the confidential messages correctly. We derive the ergodic secrecy rate of the proposed RQSM scheme and show that the secrecy performance does not degrade as the number of antennas at the eavesdropper increases, which also outperforms the conventional jamming strategies. In addition, the bit error rate of the RQSM is also analyzed, which shows that security is achieved without sacrificing the system's reliability. Numerical results validate the theoretical derivations and demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed RQSM scheme.
In this letter, a novel transmission scheme for spatial modulation (SM) is proposed to enhance the security of wiretap channel. In this scheme, partial channel state information (CSI) of the legitimate channel is exploited by the transmitter (Tx) to dynamically adapt the spatial and signal constellations mapping patterns that are unknown to Eve. Thus, Eve cannot successfully decode the confidential information over the wiretap channel. Further, an important virtue of the proposed transmission scheme, Tx does not need to know the full CSI of Eve and legitimate channels. To demonstrate the security guaranteed by the proposed scheme, bit error rate, secrecy rate, and secrecy outage probability are evaluated.
In this paper, we propose a noisy and dynamic-index partitioned modulation (IPM) to secure a quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) constellation transmission over a non-degraded wiretap channel. Unlike approaches that rely on multi-antenna systems or tight amplitude-phase tracking, IPM partitions QAM into multiple disjoint subsets that are separately indexed by a dynamic key, known at the transmitter (Alice) and the legitimate receiver (Bob), but not at the eavesdropper (Eve). The proposed IPM maps the information bits into multiple sequences, each one lying in a different partition of the QAM constellation space. This mapping is performed through a cross-bit labeling that we define to increase the confusion at the eavesdropper, while minimizing the bit error rate (BER) at the legitimate receiver. As the eavesdropper is not aware of the dynamic index pointing to the different partitions, the IPM creates larger Voronoï detection zones around Bob’s symbol compared to Eve. To induce further confusion at Eve, we inject random uniform noise into IPM symbols. The noise varies in a domain that is fully included in Bob’s larger detection zone, but it exceeds Eve’s detection zone. The performances of the noisy IPM scheme in terms of error rate and secrecy rate are analytically and numerically evaluated. Our results show that the IPM scheme creates on the Eavesdropper’s link an error floor, independently of its signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). However, the IPM scheme preserves the legitimate link, for which the BER decreases as the SNR increases. Indeed, the secrecy rate remains positive for all SNR values and achieves an asymptotical constant plateau value.
Providing secure communications over the physical layer with the objective of achieving secrecy without requiring a secret key has been receiving growing attention within the past decade. The vast majority of the existing studies in the area of physical layer security focus exclusively on the scenarios where the channel inputs are Gaussian distributed. However, in practice, the signals employed for transmission are drawn from discrete signal constellations such as phase shift keying and quadrature amplitude modulation. Hence, understanding the impact of the finite-alphabet input constraints and designing secure transmission schemes under this assumption is a mandatory step toward a practical implementation of physical layer security. With this motivation, this paper reviews recent developments on physical layer security with finite-alphabet inputs. We explore transmit signal design algorithms for single-antenna as well as multi-antenna wiretap channels under different assumptions on the channel state information at the transmitter. Moreover, we present a review of the recent results on secure transmission with discrete signaling for various scenarios including multi-carrier transmission systems, broadcast channels with confidential messages, cognitive multiple access and relay networks. Throughout the article, we stress the important behavioral differences of discrete versus Gaussian inputs in the context of the physical layer security. We also present an overview of practical code construction over Gaussian and fading wiretap channels, and discuss some open problems and directions for future research.