This paper comprehensively studies the physical layer security in frequency division duplex multi-antenna cellular systems, where the multi-antenna base stations (BSs), legitimate users (LUs), and eavesdroppers are all randomly located. Each BS employs artificial-noise (AN)-aided multi-user linear beamforming with limited channel state information feedback. Based on the stochastic geometry theory, we first derive an analytical expression of a lower bound on the ergodic secrecy rate (ESR) of the typical LU without assuming asymptotes for any system parameter. We then develop a tight closed-form approximation on the optimal number of feedback bits to maximize a lower bound on the per-user net ESR, which takes into consideration the cost of uplink spectral efficiency for limited feedback. Moreover, the power allocation coefficient between message-bearing signals and AN can be optimized by using a bisection search method. Our main finding is that, the optimum number of feedback bits scales linearly with the path-loss exponent and the number of antennas, and scales logarithmically with the channel coherence time. The derived analytical results can also provide system-level insights into the ESR performance of the multi-antenna random cellular networks with limited feedback and the optimal system design. Numerical results are also presented to verify the obtained results.
This paper comprehensively studies the physical layer security in frequency division duplex multi-antenna cellular systems, where the multi-antenna base stations (BSs), legitimate users (LUs), and eavesdroppers are all randomly located. Each BS employs artificial-noise (AN)-aided multi-user linear beamforming with limited channel state information feedback. Based on the stochastic geometry theory, we first derive an analytical expression of a lower bound on the ergodic secrecy rate (ESR) of the typical LU without assuming asymptotes for any system parameter. We then develop a tight closed-form approximation on the optimal number of feedback bits to maximize a lower bound on the per-user net ESR, which takes into consideration the cost of uplink spectral efficiency for limited feedback. Moreover, the power allocation coefficient between message-bearing signals and AN can be optimized by using a bisection search method. Our main finding is that, the optimum number of feedback bits scales linearly with the path-loss exponent and the number of antennas, and scales logarithmically with the channel coherence time. The derived analytical results can also provide system-level insights into the ESR performance of the multi-antenna random cellular networks with limited feedback and the optimal system design. Numerical results are also presented to verify the obtained results.
In this paper, we consider secure communications in a multi-cell downlink multi-antenna system, where each multi-antenna base station (BS) sends confidential messages to one intended legitimate user (LU) with a passive multi-antenna eavesdropper trying to intercept the messages in this cell. To enhance the secure communications of the cell-edge users, the multiple BSs employ coordinated beamforming with the aid of artificial-noise (AN) beamforming. We conduct a mathematically rigorous secrecy performance analysis of the considered system and obtain new accurate closed-form expressions of a lower bound on the ergodic rate of each LU and an upper bound of the ergodic rate of each eavesdropper without assuming asymptotes for any system parameter (except for the “worst-case” scenario with zero noise power). Then, a lower bound on the ergodic secrecy rate (ESR) of each LU follows. Based on the derived analytical results, we propose a low-complexity algorithm to optimize the channel sate information (CSI) feedback bits allocation for the channels of target signal link and inter-cell interference links. Furthermore, we develop explicit sufficient conditions on the set of system parameters under which there are at least two BSs to coordinated secure transmission. Through both theoretical analysis and numerical results, we can verify that the obtained analytical lower bound on ESR of each LU as a function of the set of power allocation coefficients is generallyneither convex nor concave. Thus, we propose to employ some numerical method to find a sub-optimal power allocation solution. Finally, numerical results are also provided to validate our theoretical results and the proposed feedback bits and power allocation methods.
We present a secure multi-user multi-antenna transmission framework based on artificial-noise-aided linear zero-forcing beamforming, with limited channel state information feedback from multiple distributed legitimate users (LUs). The secrecy performance of the proposed scheme is analytically investigated and optimized. We develop a new accurate closed-form expression of a lower bound on the ergodic secrecy rate (ESR) of each LU without assuming asymptotes for any system parameter. To make system design tractable, we develop another lower bound on ESR which is so analytically amenable that it enables one to not only extend the results of the previous related works but also explore some untouched aspects of the well known artificial-noise-aided scheme. We derive the optimized power allocation coefficient to message-bearing signals which maximizes the latter ESR lower bound. Furthermore, we theoretically study respectively the impacts of the two main parameters, i.e., transmit power P and the number of feedback bits of each LU B, on the power allocation coefficient, and show the asymptotic results for the high-power and high-quantization-resolution systems. We also develop a sufficient condition on P and B under which a positive ESR of each LU can be achieved. We study some important parameters called the minimum required transmit power (MRTP) and the minimum required number of feedback bits (MRFBs) for each LU to achieve a positive ESR or to achieve a target ESR, which have rarely been touched before. Besides, we propose the algorithms to obtain the MRTP and MRFBs. Numerical results are also provided to verify our theoretical results.
Exploiting the randomness embedded in wireless channels, the physical-layer security techniques can provide additional security robustness against malicious eavesdropping at the physical layer of communication systems. To further this line of study, this thesis focuses on developing advanced multi-antenna transmission strategies for enhancing the secrecy performance of wireless communication systems. Assuming perfect channel feedback from the desired receiver and none from the eavesdropper, we consider beamforming with smartly injected artificial noise, aiming to confuse the eavesdropper whilst leaving the desired receiver unaffected. The system parameters are either chosen to be fixed for all transmissions, or adaptively adjusted based on the channel feedback from the desired receiver. For both cases, we provide novel and explicit design solutions for achieving the maximum throughput subject to a secrecy outage constraint. We then derive accurate approximations for the maximum throughput, and give new insights into the additional power cost for achieving a higher security level and the throughput gain of adaptive transmission over non-adaptive transmission. Having investigated the perfect feedback scenario, we then relax the feedback assumption and consider practical effects imposed by limited feedback constraints on the channel from the desired receiver to the transmitter. To deal with quantization error due to limited feedback whilst also accounting for unknown channel of the eavesdropper, we specify a connection outage constraint to guarantee the reliability of desired communication and a secrecy outage constraint to guard against malicious eavesdropping. Under dual outage constraints, we derive a novel optimized rate-adaptive transmission design to maximize the average secrecy throughput. New insights regarding the optimal power/feedback allocation and the number of feedback bits required for efficient quantization are obtained through our analysis. Our preceding study focused on isolated point-to-point transmission without any interference. However, the performance of contemporary wireless networks is often limited by interference from concurrent transmissions. To characterize the impact of interference on secure communication, we consider an interference-limited large-scale network. To confuse the malicious eavesdroppers, in addition to information-bearing signals, the transmitters are designed to generate artificial noise through either beamforming or antenna sectoring in a distributed manner. For both cases, using tools from stochastic geometry, we provide a statistical characterization of the reliability performance of desired communication and the secrecy performance against eavesdropping. We then investigate the networkwide secrecy throughput performance and optimize the transmit power allocation. Our analysis reveals interesting differences between the beamforming and sectoring approaches in terms of the optimal power allocation and the maximum networkwide secrecy throughput.
In this thesis, we study the physical layer security in downlink multi-user wireless networks. Traditionally, security has been addressed by cryptography at the higher layers of the communication stack. Security at the physical layer has been a major research topic in recent years. We study two different precoder designs alongside artificial noise (AN) to mitigate multi-user interference and deteriorate reception at the eavesdropper (Eve). We study the large scale analysis to calculate the secrecy sum-rate for these two cases and analyze the effect of AN on the system. First, we consider the worst case scenario, when eavesdropper's (Eve's) rate is not deteriorated by the interference caused by the legitimate users. Later, we investigate how interference from legitimate users would affect the large scale security sum rate. At the end, we assume more practical situation where the channel state information at the transmitter is not perfect due to feedback limitation and estimation error. We first study block diagonalization (BD) precoding. We derive the asymptotic secrecy sum-rate of BD for physical layer security in downlink multi-user wireless networks using artificial noise (AN). We first derive the secrecy sum-rate assuming that the channel of the eavesdropper is not known at the transmitter and derive the asymptotic secrecy sum-rate. Then we derive the optimum power allocation for asymptotic secrecy sum-rate. We design the system based on large scale analysis for different special cases. Simulation results show that the proposed precoders outperform channel inversion (CI) and regularized channel inversion (RCI) schemes at all SNRs. We also show that as the number of receive antennas of each user increases, the sum-rate gap between the proposed scheme and existing methods increases. We, then, study two methods of regularized block diagonalization (RBD) precoding using artificial noise (AN) for physical layer security in downlink multi-user MIMO wireless networks. We compare the complexity analysis of these two methods in terms of floating point operations per second (FLOPS). We derive the secrecy and asymptotic secrecy sum-rates for these schemes. We also derive closed form expressions for the asymptotic optimal power allocation to the AN signal and legitimate users. Simulations show RBD precoding outperform regularized channel inversion (RCI) in terms of secrecy sum-rate with a margin of 0.5 bits/s/Hz. Also, simulation results show our closed-form asymptotic secrecy sum-rates matches closely with the simulations for perfect and imperfect CSIT. We also study the effect of interference on BD precoding scheme. In the first two studies the worst case scenarios was considered and the effect of interference was not considered at the eavesdropper. We first derive the closed-form secrecy and asymptotic secrecy sum-rates for this scheme. Then, we derive the optimum power allocation. Using the derived optimum power allocation, we determine the conditions under which adding AN helps. We also investigate the optimum number of users, number of antennas at the eavesdropper, and the number of transmit antennas to fully study the conditions where using AN improves performance. We show that as the number of users increases or the number of receive antennas at the eavesdropper decreases, improved performance is achieved by allocating a smaller fraction of the total power to transmit the AN. The closed form expressions for the secrecy sum rate (SSR) and optimum power allocation closely match our simulation results. In Chapter 5, we study the effect of imperfect channel state information at the transmitter (CSIT) for each case studied in earlier chapters. We first study the effect of imperfect CSIT for BD precoding in both scenarios when interference does and does not exist at eavesdropper. We show that the imperfect CSI play the same role as interference for the desired users. Then, we study the effect of imperfect CSIT for RBD precoding when interference does not exist at eavesdropper. We show as channel estimation error increases, the secrecy sum-rate decreases. This is due to the fact that channel estimation error just affects the desired users' rate and has no effect on eavesdropper's performance. Finally, in the last chapter, we conclude our thesis and provide some road map for future--Author's abstract
Recently, wireless security has been highlighted as one of the most important techniques for 6G mobile communication systems. Many researchers have tried to improve the Physical-Layer Security (PLS) performance such as Secrecy Outage Probability (SOP) and Secrecy Energy-Efficiency (SEE). The SOP indicates the outage probability that the data transmission between legitimate devices does not guarantee a certain reliability level, and the SEE is defined as the ratio between the achievable secrecy-rate and the consumed transmit power. In this paper, we consider a Multi-User Multi-Input Single-Output (MU-MISO) downlink cellular network where a legitimate Base Station (BS) equipped with multiple transmit antennas sends secure information to multiple legitimate Mobile Stations (MSs), and multiple potential eavesdroppers (EVEs) equipped with a single receive antenna try to eavesdrop on this information. Each potential EVE tries to intercept the secure information, i.e., the private message, from the legitimate BS to legitimate MSs with a certain eavesdropping probability. To securely receive the private information, each legitimate MS feeds back its effective channel gain to the legitimate BS only when the effective channel gain is higher than a certain threshold, i.e., the legitimate MSs adopt an Opportunistic Feedback (OF) strategy. In such eavesdropping channels, both SOP and SEE are analyzed as performance measures of PLS and their closed-form expressions are derived mathematically. Based on the analytical results, it is shown that the SOP of the OF strategy approaches that of a Full Feedback (FF) strategy as the number of legitimate MSs or the number of antennas at the BS increases. Furthermore, the trade-off between SOP and SEE as a function of the channel feedback threshold in the OF strategy is investigated. The analytical results and related observations are verified by numerical simulations.
Utilizing artificial noise (AN) is a good means to guarantee security against eavesdropping in a multi-input multi-output system, where the AN is designed to lie in the null space of the legitimate receiver's channel direction information (CDI). However, imperfect CDI will lead to noise leakage at the legitimate receiver and cause significant loss in the achievable secrecy rate. In this paper, we consider a delayed feedback system, and investigate the impact of delayed CDI on security by using a transmit beamforming and AN scheme. By exploiting the Gauss-Markov fading spectrum to model the feedback delay, we derive a closed-form expression of the upper bound on the secrecy rate loss, where Nt= 2. For a moderate number of antennas where Nt>; 2, two special cases, based on the first-order statistics of the noise leakage and large number theory, are explored to approximate the respective upper bounds. In addition, to maintain a constant signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio degradation, we analyze the corresponding delay constraint. Furthermore, based on the obtained closed-form expression of the lower bound on the achievable secrecy rate, we investigate an optimal power allocation strategy between the information signal and the AN. The analytical and numerical results obtained based on first-order statistics can be regarded as a good approximation of the capacity that can be achieved at the legitimate receiver with a certain number of antennas, Nt. In addition, for a given delay, we show that optimal power allocation is not sensitive to the number of antennas in a high signal-to-noise ratio regime. The simulation results further indicate that the achievable secrecy rate with optimal power allocation can be improved significantly as compared to that with fixed power allocation. In addition, as the delay increases, the ratio of power allocated to the AN should be decreased to reduce the secrecy rate degradation.