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IEEE International Conference on Communication Technology (ICCT)

A Simulation and Experimental Study of Channel Reciprocity in TDD and FDD Wiretap Channels

Li Yao, Linning Peng, Guyue Li, Hua Fu, Aiqun Hu

Published Oct 1, 2019• 4 citations
Publisher

Abstract

In recent years, secret key generation based on physical layer security has gradually attracted high attentions. The wireless channel reciprocity and eavesdropping attack are critical problems in secret key generation studies. In this paper, we carry out a simulation and experimental study of channel reciprocity in terms of measuring channel state information (CSI) in both time division duplexing (TDD) and frequency division duplexing (FDD) modes. In simulation study, a close eavesdropping wiretap channel model is introduced to evaluate the security of the CSI by using Pearson correlation coefficient. In experimental study, an indoor wireless CSI measurement system is built with N210 and X310 universal software radio peripheral (USRP) platforms. In TDD mode, theoretical analysis and most of experimental results show that the closer eavesdropping distance, the higher CSI correlation coefficient between eavesdropping channel and legitimate channel. However, in actual environment, when eavesdropping distance is too close (less than 1/4 wavelength), this CSI correlation seriously dropped. In FDD mode, both theoretical analysis and experimental results show that the wireless channel still owns some reciprocity. When frequency interval increases, the FDD channel reciprocity in actual environment is better than that in theoretical analysis.

DOI
10.1109/icct46805.2019.8947305

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In recent years, secret key generation based on physical layer security has gradually attracted high attentions. The wireless channel reciprocity and eavesdropping attack are critical problems in secret key generation studies. In this paper, we carry out a simulation and experimental study of channel reciprocity in terms of measuring channel state information (CSI) in both time division duplexing (TDD) and frequency division duplexing (FDD) modes. In simulation study, a close eavesdropping wiretap channel model is introduced to evaluate the security of the CSI by using Pearson correlation coefficient. In experimental study, an indoor wireless CSI measurement system is built with N210 and X310 universal software radio peripheral (USRP) platforms. In TDD mode, theoretical analysis and most of experimental results show that the closer eavesdropping distance, the higher CSI correlation coefficient between eavesdropping channel and legitimate channel. However, in actual environment, when eavesdropping distance is too close (less than 1/4 wavelength), this CSI correlation seriously dropped. In FDD mode, both theoretical analysis and experimental results show that the wireless channel still owns some reciprocity. When frequency interval increases, the FDD channel reciprocity in actual environment is better than that in theoretical analysis.
Secret key generation from wireless channel is an emerging technique to provide secure keys for message encryption. However, the measured channel state information (CSI) requires high reciprocity in order to obtain symmetric keys. In this paper, we propose a novel loop-back transmission scheme for time division duplex (TDD) systems, which is named as LB-TDD. The proposed LB-TDD scheme can effectively reduce the CSI non-reciprocity due to the hardware fingerprint interference and system synchronization offset. We initially discuss the benefits and optimizations of using LB-TDD for CSI reciprocity enhancement. After that, a secret key generation method based on orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) probing signals is introduced. Finally, a channel model and a practical universal software radio peripheral (USRP) system is setup for both simulation and experimental verification. Evaluation results show that our proposed LB-TDD scheme can effectively eliminate CSI non-reciprocity for secret key generation.
Channel reciprocity is an inherent feature of time division duplex (TDD) system while in frequency division duplex (FDD) system it is limited due to different frequencies being used for the uplink and the downlink. As a consequence, channel reciprocity-based secret generating methods used in TDD systems cannot be applied directly to FDD systems. In this paper, we present a novel secret key generation method for FDD system, for which the communication pair estimate the channel state information (CSI) of the same time in the uplink by a specially designed forwarding strategy and generate the secret key from the CSI estimates. Numerical simulations are implemented to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Physical Layer Secret Key Generation (PLSKG), which utilizes wireless channel reciprocity, is increasingly adopted to secure wireless communications. In Time Division Duplexing (TDD) systems, the inherent channel reciprocity facilitates the generation of cryptographic keys without requiring a key exchange process. Conversely, Frequency Division Duplexing (FDD) systems present greater challenges for key generation due to the use of distinct frequency bands for uplink and downlink, resulting in differing frequency responses. In this paper, we address this challenge by modeling the channel along with connecting cables as a two-port network and utilizing the reciprocity principles applicable to such networks within the same frequency range. For key generation, we construct the channel profile for each FDD band by utilizing the amplitude of the bidirectional scattering parameters S12and S21in two closely spaced FDD bands, thereby ensuring the required reciprocity in FDD systems. To assess the practicality of the proposed scheme, we analyze its performance across various indoor scenarios and compare it with other key generation schemes using multiple performance indicators. The comparative results confirm the feasibility and effectiveness of our scheme in terms of randomness and key disagreement ratio.
Physical layer security key generation exploits unpredictable features from wireless channels to achieve high security, which requires high reciprocity in order to set up symmetric keys between two users. This paper investigates enhancing the channel reciprocity using a loop-back scheme with multiple frequency bands in time-division duplex (TDD) communication systems, in order to mitigate the effect of hardware fingerprint interference and synchronization offset. The scheme is evaluated to be robust to passive eavesdropping and active Man-in-the-Middle attack through both theoretical analyses and practical measurements. A secret key generation protocol is subsequently designed. The performance of the proposed secret key generation method is then evaluated through both numerical simulation and experiments. Results demonstrate that the proposed scheme can effectively mitigate non-reciprocity and outperforms the classical TDD scheme in both key disagreement rate and key generation rate.
Recently, extracting shared symmetric key from wireless channel is a promising approach in various application areas. Channel reciprocity and randomness are the foundations for the physical layer key generation approach. However, various practical factors cause the non-reciprocity of channel characteristics. This paper examined the influence of hardware devices deviation and switch time delay on the non-reciprocity of channel state information (CSI) in an Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (OFDM) system. The experiments were performed in various indoor scenarios on the platform of Universal Radio Peripheral (USRP). The CSI estimates of two communicating entities are collected from GNU Radio to investigate the reciprocity and redundancy. Our experiment results indicate that hardware devices deviation causes uneven non-reciprocity over bandwidth and the reciprocity drops dramatically when the switching time delays exceed the coherence time. In addition, the time redundancy of CSI estimates is mainly affected by moving speed while the frequency redundancy is affected by center frequency, propagation environment and bandwidth.
Secret key generation based on wireless channel reciprocity has received quite some attention, recently. Channel reciprocity as an inherent feature of time division duplexing (TDD) systems leads to creating cryptographic keys without the need for a key exchange procedure. Using different carrier frequencies for the uplink and the downlink, however, means that there is no such symmetry in the frequency response of frequency division duplex (FDD) systems and it makes the key generation for these systems challenging. In this paper, we use the phase differences between neighboring antennas as a frequency-independent channel parameter that provides the required reciprocity in FDD systems. For our studies, we consider neighboring frequency ranges for both directions, which should result in a continuous curve through the two frequency ranges in the two directions. For denoising we use a polynomial curve fitting procedure on the phase differences between antennas. Moreover, we propose a non-linear scheme to quantize the midpoint between the two frequency ranges with the two measurement directions. As a consequence, in contrast to using a linear scheme, the proposed framework would be highly desirable for secret key applications as it gives rise to a more uniform distribution for the resulting histogram over the quantization intervals. Numerical simulation results are shown to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.