Physical Layer Security for Visible Light Communication Systems:A Survey

Due to the dramatic increase in high data rate services and in order to meet the demands of the fifth-generation (5G) networks, researchers from both academia and industry are exploring advanced transmission techniques, new network architectures and new frequency spectrum such as the visible light spectra. Visible light communication (VLC) particularly is an emerging technology that has been introduced as a promising solution for 5G and beyond. Although VLC systems are more immune against interference and less susceptible to security vulnerabilities since light does not penetrate through walls, security issues arise naturally in VLC channels due to their open and broadcasting nature, compared to fiber-optic systems. In addition, since VLC is considered to be an enabling technology for 5G, and security is one of the 5G fundamental requirements, security issues should be carefully addressed and resolved in the VLC context. On the other hand, due to the success of physical layer security (PLS) in improving the security of radio-frequency (RF) wireless networks, extending such PLS techniques to VLC systems has been of great interest. Only two survey papers on security in VLC have been published in the literature. However, a comparative and unified survey on PLS for VLC from information theoretic and signal processing point of views is still missing. This paper covers almost all aspects of PLS for VLC, including different channel models, input distributions, network configurations, precoding/signaling strategies, and secrecy capacity and information rates. Furthermore, we propose a number of timely and open research directions for PLS-VLC systems, including the application of measurement-based indoor and outdoor channel models, incorporating user mobility and device orientation into the channel model, and combining VLC and RF systems to realize the potential of such technologies

Optimal Beamforming for Gaussian MIMO Wiretap Channels with Two Transmit Antennas

A Gaussian multiple-input multiple-output wiretap channel in which the eavesdropper and legitimate receiver are equipped with arbitrary numbers of antennas and the transmitter has two antennas is studied in this paper. Under an average power constraint, the optimal input covariance to obtain the secrecy capacity of this channel is unknown, in general. In this paper, the input covariance matrix required to achieve the capacity is determined. It is shown that the secrecy capacity of this channel can be achieved by linear precoding. The optimal precoding and power allocation schemes that maximize the achievable secrecy rate, and thus achieve the capacity, are developed subsequently. The secrecy capacity is then compared with the achievable secrecy rate of generalized singular value decomposition (GSVD)-based precoding, which is the best previously proposed technique for this problem. Numerical results demonstrate that substantial gain can be obtained in secrecy rate between the proposed and GSVD-based precodings.Comment: Accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communication

Capacity Results on Multiple-Input Single-Output Wireless Optical Channels

This paper derives upper and lower bounds on the capacity of the multiple-input single-output free-space optical intensity channel with signal-independent additive Gaussian noise subject to both an average-intensity and a peak-intensity constraint. In the limit where the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) tends to infinity, the asymptotic capacity is specified, while in the limit where the SNR tends to zero, the exact slope of the capacity is also given.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Transactions on Information Theor

The MISO Free-Space Optical Channel at Low and Moderate SNR

International audienceThe capacity of the multiple-input single-output (MISO) free-space optical channel with a per-antenna peak-power constraint and a sum (over all antennas) average-power constraint is studied. The asymptotic low-signal-to-noise-ratio (low-SNR) capacity is determined exactly and close upper and lower bounds are presented in the low-and moderate-SNR regimes. The asymptotic low-SNR limit is achieved by having each transmit antenna signal either with zero or with the maximally allowed peak power, and the latter only if all stronger antennas also send at maximum peak power. In particular, for almost all channel gains, the input to achieve the asymptotic low-SNR capacity is such that its projection on the channel-gain vector has only two or three positive probability point masses, one of them being at zero. The lower bounds at finite SNR are numerical and are obtained using input distributions whose projection on the channel-gain vector has either two, three, or four positive probability masses. Finally, the paper presents two analytic upper bounds on the capacity of the MISO channel: the first one closely follows the proposed numerical lower bounds in the low-SNR regime, and the second one can improve on previous bounds in the moderate-SNR regime

Design guidelines for spatial modulation

A new class of low-complexity, yet energyefficient Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) transmission techniques, namely the family of Spatial Modulation (SM) aided MIMOs (SM-MIMO) has emerged. These systems are capable of exploiting the spatial dimensions (i.e. the antenna indices) as an additional dimension invoked for transmitting information, apart from the traditional Amplitude and Phase Modulation (APM). SM is capable of efficiently operating in diverse MIMO configurations in the context of future communication systems. It constitutes a promising transmission candidate for large-scale MIMO design and for the indoor optical wireless communication whilst relying on a single-Radio Frequency (RF) chain. Moreover, SM may also be viewed as an entirely new hybrid modulation scheme, which is still in its infancy. This paper aims for providing a general survey of the SM design framework as well as of its intrinsic limits. In particular, we focus our attention on the associated transceiver design, on spatial constellation optimization, on link adaptation techniques, on distributed/ cooperative protocol design issues, and on their meritorious variants