Physical Layer Secure Communications

Cheng‐Ying Yang, Chuan-Bi Lin, Jenq-Foung JF Yao +1 more

Di Wu, Yuan Yao, Taihang Qiu +6 more

Physical layer security (PLS) has become a critical technique for the rapidly expanding communication network in the postquantum era, supporting superior secure communication rates with lower deployment cost. Typical PLS architecture follows the “key distribution before encrypted communication” paradigm, which causes redundant system structure and potential security issues. We propose an intrinsic physical layer secure communication architecture aided by a joint secure key distribution technique in this article. The architecture utilizes random time-varying polarization evolution induced by the fiber channel as the entropy source and estimated bit error rate information as the medium to implement an intrinsic key distribution scheme without requiring additional channels and complex devices. We realize simultaneous physical layer encrypted transmission and error-free joint secure key distribution (SKD) based on this architecture. The experimental demonstration verifies the feasibility of the scheme. We believe the highly integrated secure communication architecture with multiple guaranteed security measures may not only provide a feasible, low-cost solution for the deployment of the SKD system in a variety of communication scenarios, but also propose a “key distribution within encrypted communication” paradigm for future PLS solutions.

Ahmed Aladi

Liu Zhe, Qiaoyu Zhang, Mingzhi Cheng

Jie Tang, Hong Wen, Kai Zeng +3 more

Due to the broadcast nature of wireless radio propagation channels, 5G wireless networks face serious security threats. Security mechanisms that leverage physical layer characteristics have been considered as potential complements to enhance 5G wireless network security. This article proposes physical layer security enhancements to defend against security attacks from the three most significant aspects: wireless secure communication, physical layer assisted authentication and secret key distribution. By integrating physical layer security with novel techniques and application scenarios in 5G communication, we elaborate several promising strategies, including massive MIMO beamforming with security code communication, self-adaptive mobile and cooperative secure communication with dynamic channel prediction, physical layer assisted authentication, malicious node detection and key generation of massive MIMO millimeter wave system. Research opportunities and future challenges are further discussed.

Hui‐Ming Wang, Tong-Xing Zheng