MGF Approach to the Analysis of Generalized Two-Ray Fading Models

We analyze a class of Generalized Two-Ray (GTR) fading channels that consist of two line of sight (LOS) components with random phase plus a diffuse component. We derive a closed form expression for the moment generating function (MGF) of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for this model, which greatly simplifies its analysis. This expression arises from the observation that the GTR fading model can be expressed in terms of a conditional underlying Rician distribution. We illustrate the approach to derive simple expressions for statistics and performance metrics of interest such as the amount of fading, the level crossing rate, the symbol error rate, and the ergodic capacity in GTR fading channels. We also show that the effect of considering a more general distribution for the phase difference between the LOS components has an impact on the average SNR.Comment: 14 pages, 8 Figures and 2 Tables. This work has been accepted for publication at IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications. Copyright (c) 2014 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to use this material for any other purposes must be obtained from the IEEE by sending a request to [email protected]

Eigenvalue Dynamics of a Central Wishart Matrix with Application to MIMO Systems

We investigate the dynamic behavior of the stationary random process defined by a central complex Wishart (CW) matrix ${\bf{W}}(t)$ as it varies along a certain dimension $t$. We characterize the second-order joint cdf of the largest eigenvalue, and the second-order joint cdf of the smallest eigenvalue of this matrix. We show that both cdfs can be expressed in exact closed-form in terms of a finite number of well-known special functions in the context of communication theory. As a direct application, we investigate the dynamic behavior of the parallel channels associated with multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems in the presence of Rayleigh fading. Studying the complex random matrix that defines the MIMO channel, we characterize the second-order joint cdf of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for the best and worst channels. We use these results to study the rate of change of MIMO parallel channels, using different performance metrics. For a given value of the MIMO channel correlation coefficient, we observe how the SNR associated with the best parallel channel changes slower than the SNR of the worst channel. This different dynamic behavior is much more appreciable when the number of transmit ($N_T$) and receive ($N_R$) antennas is similar. However, as $N_T$ is increased while keeping $N_R$ fixed, we see how the best and worst channels tend to have a similar rate of change.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures and 1 table. This work has been accepted for publication at IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory. Copyright (c) 2014 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to use this material for any other purposes must be obtained from the IEEE by sending a request to [email protected]

Principles of Physical Layer Security in Multiuser Wireless Networks: A Survey

This paper provides a comprehensive review of the domain of physical layer security in multiuser wireless networks. The essential premise of physical-layer security is to enable the exchange of confidential messages over a wireless medium in the presence of unauthorized eavesdroppers without relying on higher-layer encryption. This can be achieved primarily in two ways: without the need for a secret key by intelligently designing transmit coding strategies, or by exploiting the wireless communication medium to develop secret keys over public channels. The survey begins with an overview of the foundations dating back to the pioneering work of Shannon and Wyner on information-theoretic security. We then describe the evolution of secure transmission strategies from point-to-point channels to multiple-antenna systems, followed by generalizations to multiuser broadcast, multiple-access, interference, and relay networks. Secret-key generation and establishment protocols based on physical layer mechanisms are subsequently covered. Approaches for secrecy based on channel coding design are then examined, along with a description of inter-disciplinary approaches based on game theory and stochastic geometry. The associated problem of physical-layer message authentication is also introduced briefly. The survey concludes with observations on potential research directions in this area.Comment: 23 pages, 10 figures, 303 refs. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1303.1609 by other authors. IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials, 201

Key Generation in Wireless Sensor Networks Based on Frequency-selective Channels - Design, Implementation, and Analysis

Key management in wireless sensor networks faces several new challenges. The scale, resource limitations, and new threats such as node capture necessitate the use of an on-line key generation by the nodes themselves. However, the cost of such schemes is high since their secrecy is based on computational complexity. Recently, several research contributions justified that the wireless channel itself can be used to generate information-theoretic secure keys. By exchanging sampling messages during movement, a bit string can be derived that is only known to the involved entities. Yet, movement is not the only possibility to generate randomness. The channel response is also strongly dependent on the frequency of the transmitted signal. In our work, we introduce a protocol for key generation based on the frequency-selectivity of channel fading. The practical advantage of this approach is that we do not require node movement. Thus, the frequent case of a sensor network with static motes is supported. Furthermore, the error correction property of the protocol mitigates the effects of measurement errors and other temporal effects, giving rise to an agreement rate of over 97%. We show the applicability of our protocol by implementing it on MICAz motes, and evaluate its robustness and secrecy through experiments and analysis.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computin