Selected Topics in Physical Layer Security

Wenjun Yang, Qinghe Du, Zhiwei Liu +2 more

With the rapid development of modern communication technology, more and more attention has been paid to the security of communication. In recent years, the physical layer security technology provides a new way to solve the problem of secure transmission in wireless communication. Physical layer security has become a hot research topic, but there is no special physical layer security simulation platform to provide great help for technical research. In view of this situation, this paper develops a physical layer security simulation platform based on the cross platform development framework QT, which provides visual demonstration and performance evaluation functions for specific technologies. The platform is developed with C plus plus language, and different simulation scenarios are customized for different technical schemes to simulate the simulation process. Starting from the architecture of the simulation platform, this paper presents the simulation process and evaluation results of several selected physical layer security directions, and describes the simulation platform in detail.

Matthieu R. Bloch

Li Wang

Dong Wang, Bo Bob Bai, Wenbo Zhao +1 more

Due to the malicious attacks in wireless networks, physical layer security has attracted increasing concerns from both academia and industry. The research on physical layer security mainly focuses either on the secrecy capacity/achievable secrecy rate/capacity-equivocation region from the perspective of information theory, or on the security designs from the viewpoints of optimization and signal processing. Because of its importance in security designs, the latter research direction is surveyed in a comprehensive way in this paper. The survey begins with typical wiretap channel models to cover common scenarios and systems. The topics on physical-layer security designs are then summarized from resource allocation, beamforming/precoding, and antenna/node selection and cooperation. Based on the aforementioned schemes, the performance metrics and fundamental optimization problems are discussed, which are generally adopted in security designs. Thereafter, the state of the art of optimization approaches on each research topic of physical layer security is reviewed from four categories of optimization problems, such as secrecy rate maximization, secrecy outrage probability minimization, power consumption minimization, and secure energy efficiency maximization. Furthermore, the impacts of channel state information on optimization and design are discussed. Finally, the survey concludes with the observations on potential future directions and open challenges.

Physical layer security is emerging as a promising means of ensuring secrecy in wireless communications. The key idea is to exploit the characteristics of wireless channels such as fading or noise to transmit a message from the source to the intended receiver while keeping this message confidential from eavesdroppers. Topics covered in Trusted Communications with Physical Layer Security for 5G and Beyond include secrecy metrics for physical layer security over fading channels; trusted wireless communications with spatial multiplexing; directional modulation enabled physical layer wireless security; secure waveform for 5G systems; confidential and energy efficient communications using physical layer security; secure data networks with channel uncertainty; antenna selection strategies for wiretap channels; physical layer security for massive MIMO systems, millimeter wave cellular networks, non-orthogonal multiple access, multiuser relay networks, cognitive radio networks, MIMOME-OFDM systems; wirelessly powered communication systems and D2D-enabled cellular networks; and security solutions and applications at the physical layer, including case studies of secret key generation and secrecy coding in communication nodes and terminals.