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International Conference on Computer Communication and Information Systems (CCCIS)

Key Generation Parameter Set Selection Strategy in 5G NR Wireless Networks

Cai Song, Xuan Yang

Published Feb 28, 2025• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The rapid advancement and deployment of 5G NR technology in diverse applications have introduced new challenges to network security. While 5G NR’s architecture allows flexible customization of subcarrier spacing and frame structures, enabling devices to optimize configurations based on mobility, service characteristics, and coverage, research has largely neglected the potential of fine-tuning system parameters to enhance key generation efficiency and security. This paper addresses this gap by analyzing time-frequency domain correlation and key generation rate as key metrics. We explore the impact of parameter selection on the key generation process in 5G NR systems. Using the Pearson correlation coefficient of channel estimates in the time-frequency domain, we propose a parameter selection strategy to improve physical layer security, validated through simulations. Results show that in fast-fading environments, smaller subcarrier spacing yields better results, while in frequency-selective fading channels, larger subcarrier spacing significantly enhances key generation performance.

DOI
10.1109/cccis64581.2025.00036

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The rapid advancement and deployment of 5G NR technology in diverse applications have introduced new challenges to network security. While 5G NR’s architecture allows flexible customization of subcarrier spacing and frame structures, enabling devices to optimize configurations based on mobility, service characteristics, and coverage, research has largely neglected the potential of fine-tuning system parameters to enhance key generation efficiency and security. This paper addresses this gap by analyzing time-frequency domain correlation and key generation rate as key metrics. We explore the impact of parameter selection on the key generation process in 5G NR systems. Using the Pearson correlation coefficient of channel estimates in the time-frequency domain, we propose a parameter selection strategy to improve physical layer security, validated through simulations. Results show that in fast-fading environments, smaller subcarrier spacing yields better results, while in frequency-selective fading channels, larger subcarrier spacing significantly enhances key generation performance.
The fifth-generation new radio (NR) cellular communication is featured with numerous advancements over Long Term Evolution (LTE) and earlier technologies. It enables more flexible physical-layer resource scheduling across multiple dimensions, and two representative techniques are beamspace transmissions and time-frequency numerology selection. Nevertheless, the lightweight physical-layer secure transmission in NR remains under investigation, especially taking NR beamspace and mobility into consideration. In this work, we propose a physical-layer wireless key generation (KG) efficient beamspace adaptation scheme for NR, where the KG capacity is theoretically characterized by critical NR components including beam direction and beamwidth. In addition, we consider the impacts of user mobility on KG performance. Since NR beamspace plays a key role in deciding the channel probing window in the spatial dimension, the NR beamspace directly affects channel probing results and hence the KG efficiency. To this end, NR beam parameters are obtained to improve the KG performance. Especially, we propose to optimize the NR beamwidth for maximizing the secrecy-delay efficiency, because a tradeoff exists in adapting the beamwidth where smaller beamwidth can improve the channel estimation accuracy but increase the beam sweeping delay. Theoretical analysis and simulation results show that the beam direction adaptation provides spatial degrees of freedom for NR to enhance KG, by enabling beam selection pointing at target areas with richer multipath scatterings. Experimental results demonstrate that the narrow beam is beneficial to enhancing the channel estimation accuracy and the resultant key agreements.
The fifth-generation new radio (NR) cellular communication introduces numerous advancements over Long Term Evolution and earlier technologies. It enables more flexible resource scheduling across multiple dimensions, with beamspace transmissions and time-frequency numerology selection as representative techniques. However, lightweight physical-layer secure transmission in NR remains under investigation, particularly taking NR beamspace into account. In this study, we propose an efficient beamwidth adaptation scheme for NR physical-layer wireless key generation (KG). Given the pivotal role of NR beamspace in determining the channel probing window in the spatial dimension, it directly influences channel probing results and, consequently, KG efficiency. To address this issue, we study NR beamwidth adaptation for enhancing KG performance. Specifically, we optimize NR beamwidth to maximize secrecy-delay efficiency, revealing the tradeoff involved in adapting beamwidth, where smaller beamwidth improves channel estimation accuracy but increases beam sweeping delay.
Key generation from the randomness of wireless channels is a promising technique to establish a secret cryptographic key securely between legitimate users. This paper proposes a new approach to extract keys efficiently from the channel responses of individual orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) subcarriers. The efficiency is achieved by: 1) fully exploiting randomness from time and frequency domains and 2) improving the cross-correlation of the channel measurements. Through the theoretical modeling of the time and frequency autocorrelation relationship of the OFDM subcarrier's channel responses, we can obtain the optimal probing rate and use multiple uncorrelated subcarriers as random sources. We also study the effects of non-simultaneous measurements and noise on the cross-correlation of the channel measurements. We find that the cross-correlation is mainly impacted by noise effects in a slow fading channel and use a low-pass filter to reduce the key disagreement rate and extend the system's working signal-to-noise ratio range. The system is evaluated in terms of randomness, key generation rate, and key disagreement rate, verifying that it is feasible to extract randomness from both time and frequency domains of the OFDM subcarrier's channel responses.
One benefit of 5G network deployment relates to the smaller size of cells allowing low latency and increased users capacity. The downside is that the potential eavesdroppers could be closer to the victim making the security more challenging. So it is clear the need for enhanced privacy protection in the next generation communications systems even for low power/low complexity IoT devices. The last few years there are numerous research efforts to enhance transmitted information security with complementary techniques that operate in physical layer. In this paper we propose a physical layer scheme that complements the security schemes implemented in the upper layers or/and in the physical layer. The proposed scheme takes advantage of the pilot subcarriers that are part of an OFDM transmission. Pilot subcarriers are essential for the pilot channel estimation process performed at the receiver. In conventional OFDM systems the positions of pilot subcarriers are known. In this paper we propose the positions of the subcarriers to change on every OFDM symbol following a probability distribution known only to the legitimate transmitter and legitimate receiver. This puts a passive eavesdropper at a relative disadvantage compared to a legitimate receiver, because it does not know the position of the pilot subcarriers. To evaluate the security performance of the proposed scheme the secrecy capacity and the outage probability are used as metrics.
High level of security is essential in wireless 5G communications. The last few years there has been an increase in research interest in the potential of the radio channel’s physical properties to provide communications security. These research efforts investigate fading, interference, and path diversity to develop security techniques for implementation in 5G New Radio (NR). In this paper, we propose a collaborative scheme to existing physical layer security schemes, taking advantage of the characteristics of the OFDM technique. An OFDM symbol includes the pilot subcarriers, typically essential for the pilot channel estimation process performed at the legitimate receiver. In this work we propose the positions of the subcarriers to change on every OFDM symbol following a probability distribution known only to the legitimate transmitter and legitimate receiver. An eavesdropper, does not have access to the information of the pilot subcarriers positions so, it performs blind channel estimation. The theoretical analysis is based on the information theoretic problem formulation and is confirmed by simulations. The performance metrics used are the secrecy capacity and the outage probability. The proposed scheme is very simple and robust, strengthening security in multimedia applications.
Secret key generation based on channel characteristics is an effective physical-layer security method for 5G wireless networks. The issues of how to ensure the high key generation rate and correlation of the secret key under active attack are needed to be addressed. In this paper, a new practical secret key generation scheme with high rate and correlation is proposed. In our proposed scheme, Alice and Bob transmit independent random sequences instead of known training sequences or probing signals; neither Alice nor Bob can decode these random sequences or estimate the channel. User's random sequences together with the channel effects are used as common random source to generate the secret key. With this solution, legitimate users are able to share secret keys with sufficient length and high security under active attack. We evaluate the proposed scheme through both analytic and simulation studies. The results show that our proposed scheme achieves high key generation rate and key security, and is suitable for 5G wireless networks with resource-constrained devices.