National Journal of RF Circuits and Wireless Systems

Physical Layer Key Generation Using Channel Reciprocity for Secure Wireless Body Area Networks

Md. Abbas, D. Gravino

Published Jan 17, 2026• 0 citations

Abstract

Reliable communication over Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) is an essential aspect of Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) because the physiological data flows between wearable sensor nodes is sensitive data. The convectional cryptography methods usually apply a lot of computational complexity as well as energy overhead besides which they are not going to fit in the ultra-low-power WBANs. In the current paper a light-weight, energy-efficient Physical Layer Key Generation (PLKG) scheme the possibilities of which based on the native randomness and reciprocity of the wireless channel is used to generate secure symmetric keys is presented. With WBANs, there is a lot of temporal and spatial dynamics in the human body and its surrounding environment, which causes great variability in channel characteristics, in terms of Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) and Channel State Information (CSI). Such physical layer parameters can be used as perfect entropy sources in generation of unique, unpredictable secret keys with whose knowledge, communication between nodes is possible and mutually exclusive only. The channel probing in the proposed framework is also robust, multi-bit quantization is performed adaptively, information reconciliation is performed through error correction codes, and privacy amplification is made through cryptographic hashing. We have developed a resilient system against bit mismatch and efficiently against passively eavesdropping, we guarantee the secrecy of the generated keys under adversary situation. With realistic WBAN models simulation and experiment validation shows that the proposed approach is capable of generating keystokes with very high key generation rate (50 bps) and a bit mismatch rate of lower than 3 percent as compared to existing schemes that solely relied on RSSI, making this protocol more secure and reliable to use. In addition, the framework meets the statistical randomness requirements specified by NIST and it does not leak mutual information to eavesdroppers. The scheme allows real-time use on resource-constrained devices, e.g., wearable medical devices and health-monitoring sensor, as it has low computational and memory overhead. The findings establish the feasibility of employing physical layer properties to achieve secure WBANs communication without any pre-shared keys or a centralized trust paradigm, thus, opening the way to scalable and privacy-preserving healthcare systems.

DOI: 10.17051/njrfcs/03.01.04

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