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IEEE Internet of Things Journal

RIS-Assisted Integration of Communications and Security: Protocol, Prototyping, and Field Trials

Zheng Wan, Kaizhi Huang, Xiaoming Xu, Ming Yi, Hui‐Ming Wang, Zhengyu Zhu, Liang Jin

Published Apr 23, 2024• 18 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS), which can manipulate the wireless environment, has recently been integrated into physical-layer key generation (PKG) systems to establish randomness symmetric keys in static environments. However, few studies have jointly considered the optimization and randomization of the RIS elements to simultaneously achieve a high key generation rate (KGR) and communication performance. This study proposes a RIS-assisted communication and security-integrated protocol for dual-function integration of communication enhancement and PKG in static environments. The protocol partitions RIS elements for beamforming and random beams for parallel execution, utilizing a sparsity adaptive matching pursuit-based channel estimation algorithm to obtain individual channel state information. Subsequently, an optimization problem is formulated for KGR maximization while satisfying quality of service (QoS) requirements. The non-convex optimization problem is addressed through monotonicity analysis and triangle inequality. We validate the efficacy of the proposed protocol by developing a 4.9 GHz RIS-assisted PKG prototype system, comprising modular hardware and flexible software. The field trials demonstrate a 30.81 bit/s KGR for static environments with an average received power increase of 10.6 dB, achieving effective simultaneous integration of communication and security.

DOI
10.1109/jiot.2024.3390677

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Reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS), which can manipulate the wireless environment, has recently been integrated into physical-layer key generation (PKG) systems to establish randomness symmetric keys in static environments. However, few studies have jointly considered the optimization and randomization of the RIS elements to simultaneously achieve a high key generation rate (KGR) and communication performance. This study proposes a RIS-assisted communication and security-integrated protocol for dual-function integration of communication enhancement and PKG in static environments. The protocol partitions RIS elements for beamforming and random beams for parallel execution, utilizing a sparsity adaptive matching pursuit-based channel estimation algorithm to obtain individual channel state information. Subsequently, an optimization problem is formulated for KGR maximization while satisfying quality of service (QoS) requirements. The non-convex optimization problem is addressed through monotonicity analysis and triangle inequality. We validate the efficacy of the proposed protocol by developing a 4.9 GHz RIS-assisted PKG prototype system, comprising modular hardware and flexible software. The field trials demonstrate a 30.81 bit/s KGR for static environments with an average received power increase of 10.6 dB, achieving effective simultaneous integration of communication and security.
This paper presents an optimal shifting scheme using reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS) to aid physicallayer key generation (PKG) and enhance communication and key generation rate (KGR) in static environments. Our approach involves designing a protocol for RIS-aided key generation and optimizing RIS coefficients to introduce phase randomization in the wireless channel while maximizing power reception. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed protocol in improving both communication performance and KGR under static conditions.
Physical layer key generation (PKG) is a promising means to provide on-the-fly shared secret keys by exploiting the intrinsic randomness of the radio channel. However, the performance of PKG is highly dependent on the propagation environments. Due to its feature of controlling the wireless environment, reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) is appealing to be applied in PKG. In this article, in contrast to the existing literature, we investigate both the constructive and destructive effects of RIS on the PKG scheme. For the constructive aspect, we have identified static and wave-blockage environments as two RIS-empowered-PKG applications in future wireless systems. In particular, our experimental results in a static environment showed that RIS can enhance the entropy of the secret key, achieving a key generation rate (KGR) of 97.39 bit/s with a bit disagreement rate (BDR) of 0.083. In multi-user systems where some remote users are in worse channel conditions, the proposed RIS-assisted PKG algorithm improves the sum secret key rate by more than 2 dB, compared to the literature. Furthermore, we point out that RIS could be utilized by an attacker to perform new jamming and leakage attacks and give countermeasures, respectively. Finally, we outline future research directions for PKG systems in light of the RIS.
Wireless Channel-based Secret Key Generation (WC-SKG) offers a promising alternative for wireless communication security, yet suffers from an extremely low key generation rate (KGR) in quasi-static environments (e.g., indoor Internet of Things), where key refresh cycles can extend for hours, creating a security vulnerability. Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (RIS) can boost KGR by introducing artificial randomness, yet existing schemes only randomize the RIS phase shifts without using environmental priors, failing to maximize the KGR and meet the communication signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) requirement, causing service outages. To overcome these limitations, we propose the RIS-assisted Integrated Communication and WC-SKG (RICK) scheme. First, we treat the RIS-adjusted channel as a designable random variable and derive its optimal probability density function (PDF) using a novel geometric-algebraic framework to maximize the KGR under the communication SNR constraint. Second, we design a constrained-clustering-based quantization region division scheme tailored to this optimal non-uniform PDF, guaranteeing uniformly distributed secret keys. Simulation results show RICK achieves a KGR approximately 3.5-5 times higher than the state-of-the-art scheme while saving at least 20 dB of transmit power for the same KGR, confirming its effectiveness in quasi-static scenarios.
Abstract In quasi-static environment, the performance of physical-layer key generation (PKG) is limited by low entropy. Deploying reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) is a mainstream method to solve this problem. However, the secret key performance (SKP) is generally insufficient at low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). In this paper, we propose an RIS-assisted adaptive PKG scheme. Specifically, we design phase based uniform quantization to enhance the randomness of the RIS channel while simplifying computations. Then, we present an RIS phase shift matrix design based on rejection sampling to adapt the quantization algorithm, which can reduce bit disagreement rate (BDR) and improve key generation rate (KGR). Furthermore, to balance the system’s requirements for low BDR and high KGR, we derive a theoretical model for estimating the BDR probability. By computing the theoretical BDR, we determine the maximum quantization order for different SNRs. Combined with a discard strategy, this enables adaptive selection of the quantization order. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed scheme achieves lower BDR and higher KGR than existing approaches. Moreover, it does not require complex algorithms, making it suitable for resource-constrained internet of things scenarios. (RIS_Assist_PKG: https://github.com/GQQ1206/RIS_Assist_PKG )
Reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) is a promising technique to enhance the performance of physical-layer key generation (PKG) due to its ability to smartly customize the radio environments. Existing RIS-assisted PKG methods are mainly based on the idealistic assumption of an independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) channel model at both the transmitter and the RIS. However, the i.i.d. model is inaccurate for a typical RIS in an isotropic scattering environment. Also, neglecting the existence of channel spatial correlation would degrade the PKG performance. In this paper, we establish a general spatially correlated channel model in multi-antenna systems and propose a new PKG framework based on the transmit and the reflective beamforming at the base station (BS) and the RIS. Specifically, we derive a closed-form expression for characterizing the key generation rate (KGR) and obtain a globally optimal solution of the beamformers to maximize the KGR. Furthermore, we analyze the KGR performance difference between the one adopting the assumption of the i.i.d. model and that of the spatially correlated model. It is found that the beamforming designed for the correlated model outperforms that for the i.i.d. model while the KGR gain increases with the channel correlation. Simulation results show that compared to existing methods based on the i.i.d. fading model, our proposed method achieves about 5 dB performance gain when the BS antenna correlationρ\rhoρis 0.3 and the RIS element spacing is half of the wavelength.
With the rapid development of 6G technologies, extremely large-scale reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (XL-RIS) have been introduced to enhance spatial diversity and improve signal coverage. Meanwhile, physical-layer key generation (PKG) has emerged as a promising, quantum-resistant solution for securing wireless communications. However, the deployment of XL-RIS significantly expands the near-field region, making traditional far-field planar wave models inadequate for PKG. To address this limitation, this paper proposes an XL-RIS-assisted PKG model based on near-field spherical wave propagation theory. We further derive a expression for the legitimate key generation rate (KGR) under passive eavesdropping attacks. To maximize the achievable KGR, we propose a novel alternating optimization(AO) algorithm ADA that combines Dinkelbach and the Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM) to jointly optimize the base station (BS) beamforming vector and RIS reflection coefficients in an iterative manner. Simulation results indicate that the spatial resolution gain provided by the near-field channel helps enhance the independence between the legitimate and eavesdropping channels. The ADA demonstrates robust convergence. Notably, it maintains superior performance even when the eavesdropper and the legitimate user share the same azimuth angle.