Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference

Physical-layer Key Generation for Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing-Orbital Angular Momentum Systems

Yun Xin, Jiawei Li, Dawei Wang, Hongbo Zhao, Yixin He, Yi Jin, Li Li, Fuhui Zhou

Published Oct 19, 2025• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a novel physical-layer key generation (PKG) scheme for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing-orbital angular momentum (OFDM-OAM) systems to significantly enhance the confidentiality capacity (CC). In the proposed scheme, we first establish the OAM channel model under uniform circular array (UCA) misalignment in the line-of-sight (LoS) channel. Facing the risk of information leakage during key negotiation, we couple key generation with the OFDM communication process. Then, we analyze the CC of the OFDM-OAM system and derive its closed-form expression. Simulation results illustrate that the proposed OFDM-OAM PKG scheme has achieved high CC compared with existing works. In addition, as the offset angle of the eavesdropper’s UCA increases, the CC increases, and the bit error rate (BER) of the eavesdropper tends to be 0.5.

DOI
10.1109/vtc2025-fall65116.2025.11310691

Related papers

Physical Layer Key Generation for Secure OAM Communication Systems

Mengyi Zhang, Zijie Ji, Yan Zhang +3 more

In this paper, we propose a physical layer secret key (PLSK) generation scheme for secure encrypted transmissions in orbital angular momentum (OAM) communication systems which improves the secret key capacity via taking advantage of OAM orthogonal modes. Based on the line-of-sight (LoS) quasi-static channel conditions in OAM systems, we propose a mode-based active defense phase in the PLSK scheme to invalidate keys generated by an eavesdropper when it is extremely close to the legitimate user. Our simulation results highlight that the key information generated by the eavesdropper is almost zero in the case of highly correlated legitimate and eavesdropping channels under LoS conditions. In addition, our proposed OAM PLSK scheme achieves a higher key generation rate (KGR) than existing works since mode-based active defense can disrupt the process of PLSK by the eavesdropper.

IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology•Jul 28, 2022•12 citations

Secret Key Generation Using OFDM Samples

Shantnu Kakkar, Inderpreet Singh Makkar, Amar Kumar Mohapatra

Information is regarded as a resource with highest organizational value. Its confidentiality, integrity and authenticity are important for any organization. The broadcast nature of wireless medium makes communication vulnerable to security attacks such as eavesdropping, non-repudiation, denial of service and more. Hence, prior to transmission of information, a secret key is securely exchanged between sender and receiver. Conventional key generation algorithms work at the application layer. However, they suffer from computational overheads and require a reliable third party. Moreover, when system grows complex, these methods start failing considerably. To encounter these issues, a novel key exchange mechanism is proposed which works at the physical layer. The proposed method is based on the concept of self-jamming and exploits the properties of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM). The simulation results show that the proposed scheme has a low Bit Error Rate (BER) for the receiver and high BER for the eavesdropper. It has also been shown that the number of attempts that eavesdropper has to make to guess the correct key are large, thereby decreasing its probability to decode the correct key.

Journal of Discrete Mathematical Sciences and Cryptography•Jun 22, 2015•7 citations

A New Scheme for Improving Channel-Based Secret Key Generation Rates

Jehad M. Hamamreh, Haji Muhammad Furqan

Physical layer key generation from the wireless channel is an emerging area of interest to provide confidentiality and authentication. One of the main challenges in this domain is to increase the length of the generated secret key while maintaining its randomness and uniformity. In this letter, new dimensions for wireless channel-based key generation are proposed for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. The novel perspective of the proposed work lies in the generation of key bits not only from the magnitudes of OFDM subchannels as it has conventionally been done but also from the number and positions/indices of those subchannels, whose channel gains are above the mean of the respective subblock. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithms is evaluated in terms of key generation rate and key mismatch rate. It is shown in the simulation results that the involvement of the proposed dimensions can double the key generation rate compared to conventional algorithms.

IEEE Wireless Communications Letters•Sep 6, 2024•3 citations

Scramble-Based Secret Key Generation Algorithm in Physical Layer Security

Dan Wang, Feng Chen, Yongtai Chen +2 more

As a new way to enhance wireless communication security, secret key generation based on physical layer channel characteristics has emerged. In this paper, we propose a novel secret key generation algorithm based on wireless channel characteristics for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) communication systems. The mean quantization algorithm is applied to quantize the real part and imaginary part of OFDM subcarriers, respectively, which can significantly increase the length of the generated secret key in the OFDM system. To reduce the consistency between the secret keys generated by the eavesdropper and the legitimate communication nodes, a processing method by taking the subcarrier phase as initialization of a scrambling code and scrambling the quantized result is proposed. The simulation and test results show that compared with the existing research, the proposed algorithm can improve the key generation rate (KGR), reduce the key mismatch rate (KMR) and complexity, maintain high randomness, and disturb the eavesdroppers.

Mobile Information Systems•Oct 4, 2022•1 citation

Robust Key Generation From Optical OFDM Signal in Indoor VLC Networks

Yahya Mohammed Al-Moliki, Mohammed T. Alresheedi, Yahya Al‐Harthi

This letter improves the confidentiality of visible light communication links by proposing a robust key-generation mechanism for optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems in an indoor environment. In this letter, we propose to generate keys from the bipolar OFDM samples at the output of optical OFDM systems. We suggest to assign a part of cyclic prefix samples located in the region of small channel effect for keys generation during session period. The proposed scheme generates keys for medium access control (MAC) sublayer and physical layer. It provides high computational security against passive eavesdroppers in the physical level, because each signal frame is encrypted by a different key. So, the encryption in MAC level can be turned off without any risk in security. This setting can enhance the system throughput. Also, the implemented method achieves zero bit disagreement rates with key generation on the fly.

IEEE Photonics Technology Letters•Sep 14, 2016•28 citations

Subcarrier Number and Indices-Based KeyGeneration for Future Wireless Networks

Haji Muhammad Furqan, Jehad M. Hamamreh, Hüseyin Arslan

Physical layer key generation from the wireless channel is an emerging area of interest to provide confidentiality and authentication. One of the main challenges in this domain is to increase the length of the secret key while maintaining its randomness and uniformity. In this work, new dimensions for wireless channel-based key generation are proposed for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. The novel perspective of the proposed work lies in the generation of key bits not only from the magnitudes of OFDM subchannels as it has conventionally been done but also from the number and positions of those subchannels whose channel gains are above the mean of the respective subblock. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithms is evaluated in terms of key generation rate and key mismatch rate. Additionally, a statistical test suite offered by the National Institute of Standards and Technology is used to evaluate the randomness of the generated key bits. It is shown in the simulation results that the involvement of the proposed dimensions can double the key generation rate compared to conventional algorithms.

arXiv:2109.15091•Sep 30, 2021•0 citations
In this paper, we propose a novel physical-layer key generation (PKG) scheme for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing-orbital angular momentum (OFDM-OAM) systems to significantly enhance the confidentiality capacity (CC). In the proposed scheme, we first establish the OAM channel model under uniform circular array (UCA) misalignment in the line-of-sight (LoS) channel. Facing the risk of information leakage during key negotiation, we couple key generation with the OFDM communication process. Then, we analyze the CC of the OFDM-OAM system and derive its closed-form expression. Simulation results illustrate that the proposed OFDM-OAM PKG scheme has achieved high CC compared with existing works. In addition, as the offset angle of the eavesdropper’s UCA increases, the CC increases, and the bit error rate (BER) of the eavesdropper tends to be 0.5.
In this paper, we propose a physical layer secret key (PLSK) generation scheme for secure encrypted transmissions in orbital angular momentum (OAM) communication systems which improves the secret key capacity via taking advantage of OAM orthogonal modes. Based on the line-of-sight (LoS) quasi-static channel conditions in OAM systems, we propose a mode-based active defense phase in the PLSK scheme to invalidate keys generated by an eavesdropper when it is extremely close to the legitimate user. Our simulation results highlight that the key information generated by the eavesdropper is almost zero in the case of highly correlated legitimate and eavesdropping channels under LoS conditions. In addition, our proposed OAM PLSK scheme achieves a higher key generation rate (KGR) than existing works since mode-based active defense can disrupt the process of PLSK by the eavesdropper.
Information is regarded as a resource with highest organizational value. Its confidentiality, integrity and authenticity are important for any organization. The broadcast nature of wireless medium makes communication vulnerable to security attacks such as eavesdropping, non-repudiation, denial of service and more. Hence, prior to transmission of information, a secret key is securely exchanged between sender and receiver. Conventional key generation algorithms work at the application layer. However, they suffer from computational overheads and require a reliable third party. Moreover, when system grows complex, these methods start failing considerably. To encounter these issues, a novel key exchange mechanism is proposed which works at the physical layer. The proposed method is based on the concept of self-jamming and exploits the properties of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM). The simulation results show that the proposed scheme has a low Bit Error Rate (BER) for the receiver and high BER for the eavesdropper. It has also been shown that the number of attempts that eavesdropper has to make to guess the correct key are large, thereby decreasing its probability to decode the correct key.
Physical layer key generation from the wireless channel is an emerging area of interest to provide confidentiality and authentication. One of the main challenges in this domain is to increase the length of the generated secret key while maintaining its randomness and uniformity. In this letter, new dimensions for wireless channel-based key generation are proposed for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. The novel perspective of the proposed work lies in the generation of key bits not only from the magnitudes of OFDM subchannels as it has conventionally been done but also from the number and positions/indices of those subchannels, whose channel gains are above the mean of the respective subblock. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithms is evaluated in terms of key generation rate and key mismatch rate. It is shown in the simulation results that the involvement of the proposed dimensions can double the key generation rate compared to conventional algorithms.
As a new way to enhance wireless communication security, secret key generation based on physical layer channel characteristics has emerged. In this paper, we propose a novel secret key generation algorithm based on wireless channel characteristics for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) communication systems. The mean quantization algorithm is applied to quantize the real part and imaginary part of OFDM subcarriers, respectively, which can significantly increase the length of the generated secret key in the OFDM system. To reduce the consistency between the secret keys generated by the eavesdropper and the legitimate communication nodes, a processing method by taking the subcarrier phase as initialization of a scrambling code and scrambling the quantized result is proposed. The simulation and test results show that compared with the existing research, the proposed algorithm can improve the key generation rate (KGR), reduce the key mismatch rate (KMR) and complexity, maintain high randomness, and disturb the eavesdroppers.
This letter improves the confidentiality of visible light communication links by proposing a robust key-generation mechanism for optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems in an indoor environment. In this letter, we propose to generate keys from the bipolar OFDM samples at the output of optical OFDM systems. We suggest to assign a part of cyclic prefix samples located in the region of small channel effect for keys generation during session period. The proposed scheme generates keys for medium access control (MAC) sublayer and physical layer. It provides high computational security against passive eavesdroppers in the physical level, because each signal frame is encrypted by a different key. So, the encryption in MAC level can be turned off without any risk in security. This setting can enhance the system throughput. Also, the implemented method achieves zero bit disagreement rates with key generation on the fly.
Physical layer key generation from the wireless channel is an emerging area of interest to provide confidentiality and authentication. One of the main challenges in this domain is to increase the length of the secret key while maintaining its randomness and uniformity. In this work, new dimensions for wireless channel-based key generation are proposed for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. The novel perspective of the proposed work lies in the generation of key bits not only from the magnitudes of OFDM subchannels as it has conventionally been done but also from the number and positions of those subchannels whose channel gains are above the mean of the respective subblock. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithms is evaluated in terms of key generation rate and key mismatch rate. Additionally, a statistical test suite offered by the National Institute of Standards and Technology is used to evaluate the randomness of the generated key bits. It is shown in the simulation results that the involvement of the proposed dimensions can double the key generation rate compared to conventional algorithms.