An enhanced indoor visible light communication physical‐layer security scheme for 5G networks: Survey, security challenges, and channel analysis secrecy performance
Summary Visible light communication (VLC) is considered to be a great replacement or complement to existing radio frequency networks to provide the future fifth‐generation (5G) wireless technology with higher data rates for indoor connectivity, which alleviates the traffic demand. Therefore, many issues emerged regarding the security in 5G networks as human safety is at risk. This work presents a comprehensive study on the physical‐layer security (PLS) and solutions in 5G networks, specifically, the security of VLC technology as one of the core PLS solutions for 5G future wireless networks. Furthermore, VLC threats and PLS solutions are extensively investigated. Based on our study, we propose a new indoor VLC secure model to enhance the secrecy performance in VLC networks using a combination of multiple PLS techniques to achieve this aim as beamforming, secure communication zones, and friendly jamming. The simulation results with respect to the received optical power and signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR) prove that the proposed indoor VLC model can improve the secrecy performance. As the user's SNR exceeded 100 dB and optical received power reached 15 mW, the malicious user's SNR barely reached 30 dB with a 4‐μW received power outside the target zone increasing his interference level. Finally, future research directions in VLC security are outlined to encourage future research.
Summary Visible light communication (VLC) is considered to be a great replacement or complement to existing radio frequency networks to provide the future fifth‐generation (5G) wireless technology with higher data rates for indoor connectivity, which alleviates the traffic demand. Therefore, many issues emerged regarding the security in 5G networks as human safety is at risk. This work presents a comprehensive study on the physical‐layer security (PLS) and solutions in 5G networks, specifically, the security of VLC technology as one of the core PLS solutions for 5G future wireless networks. Furthermore, VLC threats and PLS solutions are extensively investigated. Based on our study, we propose a new indoor VLC secure model to enhance the secrecy performance in VLC networks using a combination of multiple PLS techniques to achieve this aim as beamforming, secure communication zones, and friendly jamming. The simulation results with respect to the received optical power and signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR) prove that the proposed indoor VLC model can improve the secrecy performance. As the user's SNR exceeded 100 dB and optical received power reached 15 mW, the malicious user's SNR barely reached 30 dB with a 4‐μW received power outside the target zone increasing his interference level. Finally, future research directions in VLC security are outlined to encourage future research.
Due to the dramatic increase in high data rate services and in order to meet the demands of the fifth-generation (5G) networks, researchers from both academia and industry are exploring advanced transmission techniques, new network architectures and new frequency spectrum such as the visible light and the millimeter wave (mmWave) spectra. Visible light communication (VLC) particularly is an emerging technology that has been introduced as a promising solution for 5G and beyond, owing to the large unexploited spectrum, which translates to significantly high data rates. Although VLC systems are more immune against interference and less susceptible to security vulnerabilities since light does not penetrate through walls, security issues arise naturally in VLC channels due to their open and broadcasting nature, compared to fiber-optic systems. In addition, since VLC is considered to be an enabling technology for 5G, and security is one of the 5G fundamental requirements, security issues should be carefully addressed and resolved in the VLC context. On the other hand, due to the success of physical layer security (PLS) in improving the security of radio-frequency (RF) wireless networks, extending such PLS techniques to VLC systems has been of great interest. Only two survey papers on security in VLC have been published in the literature. However, a comparative and unified survey on PLS for VLC from information theoretic and signal processing point of views is still missing. This paper covers almost all aspects of PLS for VLC, including different channel models, input distributions, network configurations, precoding/signaling strategies, and secrecy capacity and information rates. Furthermore, we propose a number of timely and open research directions for PLS-VLC systems, including the application of measurement-based indoor and outdoor channel models, incorporating user mobility and device orientation into the channel model, and combining VLC and RF systems to realize the potential of such technologies.
Visible light communication (VLC) is a new enabling communication technology that exploits illumination devices, mostly high-brightness light-emitting diodes (LEDs), to establish high-speed short-range wireless communication links. VLC is a promising technology that has gained significant interest in the last decade due to its high data rates and low cost of deployment. Although VLC systems are less susceptible to eavesdropping than RF systems since light does not penetrate through walls, they become as vulnerable as their radio-frequency (RF) counterparts when their nodes are deployed in public areas and/or when there are large windows. Thus, security for VLC systems is as important as it is for RF systems. Security in wireless communication systems may be enhanced by introducing physical layer security (PLS) techniques. In fact, PLS has been applied to a wide range of RF applications in an effort to improve the overall security by complementing existing cryptography-based security techniques. The potential of PLS stems from its ability of leveraging features of the surrounding environments via sophisticated encoding techniques at the physical layer. Indeed, PLS schemes can be applied in the same spirit to VLC systems. \n \nThere exist many specificities that characterize VLC systems, leading to major differences compared to RF systems. Specifically, VLC channels are quasi-static and real valued channels, which seemingly simplify the application of PLS techniques. However, due to the limited dynamic range of the LEDs, VLC systems impose an amplitude constraint on the channel input, which makes unbounded inputs not admissible. As a result, the performance of PLS schemes must be revised in the VLC context due to its different operating constraints. \n \nWe propose in this thesis enhancing the secrecy performance of VLC systems through PLS techniques. Firstly, we consider the degraded single-input single-output (SISO) VLC system. We derive achievable secrecy rates using continuous and discrete input distributions and we demonstrate the substantial improvement in the secrecy performance by using discrete distributions. Secondly, we consider the multiple-input single-output (MISO) VLC systems. We consider at first the case of randomly located eavesdroppers, in which we develop an associated achievable secrecy rate and we develop a beamforming-based precoding scheme that enhances the secrecy performance of this class of systems. In the second part, we consider the multi-user (MU) MISO broadcast system with confidential messages and we develop linear precoding schemes that enhance typical secrecy performance measures, including the max-min fairness and the weighted fairness. Finally, we consider the multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) VLC system. We derive achievable secrecy rates using continuous and discrete distributions and we develop linear precoding schemes that improve its secrecy performance.
Visible Light Communication (VLC) is a key technology for the sixth-generation (6G) wireless communication thanks to the possibility of using artificial environmental lights as a data transfer channel. Although VLC systems are more resistant against interference and less susceptible to security vulnerabilities like most wireless networks, VLC is even inherently susceptible to eavesdropping attacks. Moreover, since VLC is considered an enabling technology for 6G, specific mechanisms are needed to enforce data security. This paper considers improving the security of the next generation of wireless communications by using the Watermark Blind Physical Layer Security (WBPLSec) in VLCs. The main intuition is that RGB LEDs offer the possibility for Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) as a useful support for the Spread-Spectrum (SS) watermarking. In this paper, we propose an approach that aims at obtaining VLC Physical Layer Security (PLS) by combining watermarking with an RGB LED jamming. We provide a performance analysis of the proposed security architecture based on the secrecy capacity in terms of its existence and outage probability. We prove that WBPLSec can be used to significantly improve confidentiality in the next generation of wireless communications. The results offer the possibility of creating a secure region around the legitimate receiver by leveraging the jamming optical power.
Visible light communication (VLC) is a burgeoning field in wireless communications as it considers illumination and communication simultaneously. The broadcast nature of VLC makes it necessary to consider the security of underlying transmissions. A physical-layer security (PLS) scheme by introducing jamming LEDs is considered in this paper. The secrecy rate of an indoor VLC system with multiple LEDs, one legitimate receiver, and multiple eavesdroppers is investigated. Three distributions of input signal are assumed, i.e., truncated generalized normal distribution (TGN), uniform distribution, and exponential distribution. The results show that jamming can improve the secrecy performance efficiently. This paper also demonstrates that when the numbers of LEDs transmitting information-bearing signal and jamming signal are equal, the average secrecy rate can be maximized.
Visible light communication (VLC) has emerged as a promising candidate to complement and enhance the performance of the existing radio frequency (RF) networks in indoor environments. Due to the broadcast nature of both RF and VLC channels, improving the transmission confidentiality is a requirement in practical wireless networks. Physical-layer security has emerged to provide a first line of defense against eavesdropping attacks. In this paper, we study the physical layer security problem of a hybrid RF/VLC system. First, we formulate the minimization problem of the consumed electrical power in the hybrid RF/VLC network while satisfying the user's required secrecy rate. Then, we propose a zero forcing beamforming strategy and a minimum power allocation algorithm. Simulations results show that the proposed power allocation and beamforming algorithms outperform the benchmark algorithms in terms of the average consumed electrical power in various indoor scenarios.
The advent of 6G wireless networks requires strong physical layer security (PLS) measures to guard off ever-changing cyber dangers and guarantee extremely dependable communication. In congested locations, traditional security systems based on radio frequency (RF) encounter challenges such as increased interference, eavesdropping concerns, and spectrum congestion. To tackle these issues, the present research investigates how Visible Light Communication (VLC) might be incorporated into 6G networks to supplement existing methods of improving PLS. Minimizing interference from outside sources during VLC signal transmission, guaranteeing safe key exchange, and finding the optimal location for system performance and security are all significant obstacles. This research presents a new framework Quantum-Enhanced Secure VLC (QES-VLC), which uses adaptive beamforming in conjunction with quantum key distribution (QKD) to improve data security and reduce the probability of interception. This method guarantees a smooth handoff between hybrid VLC-RF networks and restricts illegal access by taking advantage of VLC's inherent directional transmission features. Secure vehicle communications, industrial automation, and smart city infrastructure of the future are all areas where this research could be beneficial. This approach enables ultra-secure, high-speed wireless networks by incorporating VLC into the 6G ecosystem; this improves security without reducing efficiency. An improvement in resilience against eavesdropping is achieved at 99.5%, a decrease in bit error rate to 15.7%, and an increase in secrecy capacity to 98.2%. An extensive simulation analysis is performed using MATLAB to test the suggested approach. The results showed that secure key exchange efficiency improved to 97.3%, while system latency and power consumption are lowered to 28.3% and 18.9%, respectively. In addition, its effectiveness in secure data transfer has been experimentally validated in a real-time VLC experimentation.