Abstract In this paper, we investigate the secrecy performance of short-packet transmissions in ultra-reliable and low-latency communications (URLLC). We consider the scenario where a multi-antenna source communicates with a single-antenna legitimate receiver requiring ultra-high reliability and low latency, in the presence of a single-antenna eavesdropper. In order to safeguard URLLC, the source transmits the artificial noise (AN) signal together with the confidential signal to confuse the eavesdropper. We adopt a lower bound on the maximal secrecy rate as the secrecy performance metric for short-packet transmissions in URLLC, which takes the target decoding error probabilities at the legitimate receiver and the eavesdropper into account. Using this metric, we first derive a compact expression of the generalized secrecy outage probability (SOP). Then, we formally prove that the generalized SOP is a convex function with respect to the power allocation factor between the confidential signal and the AN signal. We further determine the optimal power allocation factor that minimizes the generalized SOP. The results presented in this work can be useful for designing new secure transmission schemes for URLLC.
Abstract In this paper, we investigate the secrecy performance of short-packet transmissions in ultra-reliable and low-latency communications (URLLC). We consider the scenario where a multi-antenna source communicates with a single-antenna legitimate receiver requiring ultra-high reliability and low latency, in the presence of a single-antenna eavesdropper. In order to safeguard URLLC, the source transmits the artificial noise (AN) signal together with the confidential signal to confuse the eavesdropper. We adopt a lower bound on the maximal secrecy rate as the secrecy performance metric for short-packet transmissions in URLLC, which takes the target decoding error probabilities at the legitimate receiver and the eavesdropper into account. Using this metric, we first derive a compact expression of the generalized secrecy outage probability (SOP). Then, we formally prove that the generalized SOP is a convex function with respect to the power allocation factor between the confidential signal and the AN signal. We further determine the optimal power allocation factor that minimizes the generalized SOP. The results presented in this work can be useful for designing new secure transmission schemes for URLLC.
In this letter, we focus on the secrecy outage analysis of ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC) systems in the presence of randomly located eavesdroppers and imperfect channel state information (CSI). To be specific, the secrecy outage probability (SOP) of pilot-assisted URLLC system is investigated, which is defined as the probability that either the reliability const-raint or the secrecy constraint cannot be satisfied when the packet is delivered with a target data rate and blocklength. In fact, the definition of SOP in URLLC scenarios with short-packet feature is evidently different from that in the infinite blocklength regime. Inspired by this, we first propose a novel analytical framework to approximate the SOP in a tractable manner. Then, the asymptotic behaviours of SOP in the high-SNR and large-antenna cases are also analyzed to gain a comprehensive insight. Numerical results illustrate how the SOP of our pilot-assisted URLLC system varies with specific transmission parameters.
In this article, we focus on the pilot-assisted transmission design for secure ultra-reliable and low-latency communication (URLLC) systems, which has not yet been studied in the existing literatures. In each transmission period of this system, the multi-antenna controller sends confidential URLLC messages integrated with artificial noise (AN) to a single-antenna actuator for some mission-critical operations (e.g., remote control), and while an unknown number of passive eavesdroppers attempt to intercept this confidential message in a non-colluding manner. Since the conventional ergodic secrecy capacity is not accurate to describe the maximal achievable secrecy rate of URLLC with short blocklength coding, we establish the concept of achievable effective secrecy rate (AESR) to measure the secrecy performance of our URLLC system, which is defined as the average number of information bits can be transmitted per channel use under given reliability and information leakage constraints. Due to the exact expression of AESR has an intractable form, we derive a closed-form approximation on the AESR to simplify the calculation, via leveraging the Laplace approximation and Gaussian-Chebyshev quadrature method. Following by this approximation, we propose an efficient two-dimensional search algorithm to determine the optimal transmission parameters that maximize the AESR, i.e., the training pilot length and the power allocation ratio between confidential data signals and AN. Furthermore, the asymptotic performance of AESR in the high-SNR regime is also analyzed to gain more insights. Numerical results validate the accuracy of theoretical approximations presented in this paper, and illustrate how the particular system parameters impact the AESR of our considered URLLC system.
Considering multi-user downlink ultra-high reliability and low latency communications (URLLC), this paper employs the artificial noise (AN) technique to establish a secure and covert broadcast communication paradigm for the first time. Specifically, a multi-antenna transmitter (Alice) broadcasts the confidential information to multiple legitimate users in the presence of a multi-antenna malicious warden (Willie) and a multi-antenna eavesdropper (Eve). It is well known that AN is an effective technique for securing the physical layer security (PLS) of signal transmissions. Nevertheless, AN emission also exposes the signal transmission and decreases the signal covertness. Taking into account the impact of short-packet URLLC transmissions, we investigate the joint optimization of the precoder and AN to maximize the secrecy rate under the covertness constraint. Although the considered problem is nonconvex, we propose a branch-reduce-and-bound (BRB)-based algorithm to solve it optimally. However, the nested-loop structure of the BRB-based algorithm incurs a high computational complexity. To strike a balance between the performance and computational complexity, we also propose a low-complexity penalty successive convex approximation (SCA)-based algorithm, whose performance approaches that of the optimal BRB-based algorithm, particularly in the low to medium transmit power regime. Simulation results demonstrate the excellent performance of our proposed optimization algorithms compared with various benchmark algorithms and unveil the importance of exploiting AN for secrecy provisioning.
This paper investigates the secrecy outage performance of a multiple-input multiple-output and multi-antenna eavesdropper system. We consider a novel formulation for the secrecy outage probability, which is capable of quantifying reliability and secrecy separately, thus constituting a useful tool in the context of new scenarios with stringent requirements on reliability as the case of ultra-reliable low-latency communication. Our system considers a multi-antenna transmitter, Alice, that employs transmit antenna selection, a legitimate multi-antenna receiver, Bob, and a multi-antenna eavesdropper, Eve, where both employing maximal-ratio combining. For this system, exact and simpler asymptotic closed-form expressions for the conditional outage probability are provided. Moreover, for the case where channel state information is available at the three nodes, a numerical secure throughput maximization is carried out by considering quality-of-service and security constraints for an adaptive rate allocation scheme in an ON-OFF transmission. Our proposed closed-form expressions are validated via Monte Carlo simulations.
In this paper, we study the secure multi-antenna transmission with artificial noise (AN) under slow fading channels coexisting with randomly located eavesdroppers. We provide a comprehensive secrecy performance analysis and system design/optimization under a stochastic geometry framework. Specifically, we first evaluate the secrecy outage performance, and derive a closed-form expression for the optimal power allocation ratio of the information signal power to the total transmit power that minimizes the secrecy outage probability (SOP). Subject to a SOP constraint, we then propose a dynamic parameter transmission scheme (DPTS) and a static parameter transmission scheme (SPTS) to maximize secrecy throughput, and provide explicit solutions on the optimal transmission parameters, including the wiretap code rates, the on-off transmission threshold and the power allocation ratio. Our results give new insight into secure transmission designs. For example, secrecy rate is a concave function of the power allocation ratio in DPTS, and AN plays a significant role under SOP constraints and in dense eavesdropper scenarios. In SPTS, transmission probability is a concave function of the power allocation ratio, and secrecy throughput is a quasi-concave function of the secrecy rate. Numerical results are demonstrated to validate our theoretical analysis.
This paper considers the physical layer security (PLS) and covertness of the signal transmission in a multiple-input single-output downlink adopting ultra-high reliability and low latency communication (URLLC). In the considered system, Alice transmits confidential signals to Bob in the presence of a multi-antenna eavesdropper (Eve) and a multi-antenna watchful adversary (Willie). Although artificial noise (AN) is a common PLS technique for protecting the confidential signal from wiretapping, it may reduce the communication covertness due to the additional signal emission. For maximizing the achievable secrecy rate, we propose an AN-aided secure and covert communication strategy through optimizing the information carrying beamformer and AN jointly subject to the covertness constraint. To tackle the formulated non-convex design problem, we propose a branch-reduce-and-bound (BRB)-based algorithm to solve the considered problem globally. Simulation results validate its efficiency compared with a benchmark algorithm and unveil the importance of exploiting AN.