Secrecy Sum-Rates with Regularized Channel Inversion Precoding under Imperfect CSI at the Transmitter

In this paper, we study the performance of regularized channel inversion precoding in MISO broadcast channels with confidential messages under imperfect channel state information at the transmitter (CSIT). We obtain an approximation for the achievable secrecy sum-rate which is almost surely exact as the number of transmit antennas and the number of users grow to infinity in a fixed ratio. Simulations prove this anaylsis accurate even for finite-size systems. For FDD systems, we determine how the CSIT error must scale with the SNR, and we derive the number of feedback bits required to ensure a constant high-SNR rate gap to the case with perfect CSIT. For TDD systems, we study the optimum amount of channel training that maximizes the high-SNR secrecy sum-rate.Comment: IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP), May 2013. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1304.585

Optimal Power Allocation in Block Fading Channels With Confidential Messages

The optimal power allocation for block fading (BF) networks with confidential messages is investigated under an $M$-block delay and power constraint. First, we study networks without channel state information (CSI) feedback to the transmitter and demonstrate that the optimal power allocation is the equidistribution of the power budget, denoted as the 'blind policy.' In blind scenarios secrecy can be achieved through receiver diversity; the probability of secrecy outage (PSO) is shown to decay exponentially with the diversity order of the legitimate user. Then, we investigate networks with CSI feedback. For comparison purposes, we restate the acausal secure waterfilling algorithm with full CSI before moving to the causal feedback scenario. In the latter, an approximate 'threshold policy' for the low SNR and an approximate 'high power policy' for the high SNR regimes are derived. Furthermore, a novel universal transmission policy is proposed across all SNRs, denoted as the 'blind horizon approximation' (BHA). Through numerical results, the BHA policy is shown to outperform both the threshold and high power policies when the legitimate user has an SNR advantage with respect to the eavesdropper, while it also compares well with the secure waterfilling policy

An Overview of Physical Layer Security with Finite-Alphabet Signaling

Providing secure communications over the physical layer with the objective of achieving perfect secrecy without requiring a secret key has been receiving growing attention within the past decade. The vast majority of the existing studies in the area of physical layer security focus exclusively on the scenarios where the channel inputs are Gaussian distributed. However, in practice, the signals employed for transmission are drawn from discrete signal constellations such as phase shift keying and quadrature amplitude modulation. Hence, understanding the impact of the finite-alphabet input constraints and designing secure transmission schemes under this assumption is a mandatory step towards a practical implementation of physical layer security. With this motivation, this article reviews recent developments on physical layer security with finite-alphabet inputs. We explore transmit signal design algorithms for single-antenna as well as multi-antenna wiretap channels under different assumptions on the channel state information at the transmitter. Moreover, we present a review of the recent results on secure transmission with discrete signaling for various scenarios including multi-carrier transmission systems, broadcast channels with confidential messages, cognitive multiple access and relay networks. Throughout the article, we stress the important behavioral differences of discrete versus Gaussian inputs in the context of the physical layer security. We also present an overview of practical code construction over Gaussian and fading wiretap channels, and we discuss some open problems and directions for future research.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials (1st Revision

Physical layer security in wireless networks: intelligent jamming and eavesdropping

This work aims at addressing two critical security issues residing in the physical layer of wireless networks, namely intelligent jamming and eavesdropping. In the first two chapters we study the problem of jamming in a fixed-rate transmission system with fading, under the general assumption that the jammer has no knowledge about either the codebook used by the legitimate communication terminals, or the source’s output. Both transmitter and jammer are subject to power constraints which can be enforced over each codeword (peak) or over all codewords (average). All our jamming problems are formulated as zero-sum games, having the probability of outage as pay-off function and power control functions as strategies. We provide a comprehensive coverage of these problems, under fast and slow fading, peak and average power constraints, pure and mixed strategies, with and without channel state information (CSI) feedback. Contributions to the eavesdropping problem include a novel feedback scheme for transmitting secret messages between two legitimate parties, over an eavesdropped communication link, presented in Chapter 4. Relative to Wyner’s traditional encoding scheme, our feedback-based encoding often yields larger rate-equivocation regions and achievable secrecy rates. More importantly, by exploiting the channel randomness inherent in the feedback channels, our scheme achieves a strictly positive secrecy rate even when the eavesdropper’s channel is less noisy than the legitimate receiver’s channel. In Chapter 5 we study the problem of active eavesdropping in fast fading channels. The active eavesdropper is a more powerful adversary than the classical eavesdropper. It can choose between two functional modes: eavesdropping the transmission between the legitimate parties (Ex mode), and jamming it (Jx mode) – the active eavesdropper cannot function in full duplex mode. We consider two scenarios: the best-case scenario, when the transmitter knows the eavesdropper’s strategy in advance – and hence can adaptively choose an encoding strategy – and the worst-case scenario, when the active eavesdropper can choose its strategy based on the legitimate transmitter-receiver pair’s strategy. For the second scenario, we introduce a novel encoding scheme, based on very limited and unprotected feedback – the Block-Markov Wyner (BMW) encoding scheme – which outperforms any schemes currently available

Optimum Power Randomization for the Minimization of Outage Probability

Cataloged from PDF version of article.The optimum power randomization problem is studied to minimize outage probability in flat block-fading Gaussian channels under an average transmit power constraint and in the presence of channel distribution information at the transmitter. When the probability density function of the channel power gain is continuously differentiable with a finite second moment, it is shown that the outage probability curve is a nonincreasing function of the normalized transmit power with at least one inflection point and the total number of inflection points is odd. Based on this result, it is proved that the optimum power transmission strategy involves randomization between at most two power levels. In the case of a single inflection point, the optimum strategy simplifies to on-off signaling for weak transmitters. Through analytical and numerical discussions, it is shown that the proposed framework can be adapted to a wide variety of scenarios including log-normal shadowing, diversity combining over Rayleigh fading channels, Nakagami-m fading, spectrum sharing, and jamming applications. We also show that power randomization does not necessarily improve the outage performance when the finite second moment assumption is violated by the power distribution of the fading. © 2013 IEEE

Beamforming optimization for two-way relay channel

In this thesis, we focus on the optimization of the two-way relay channel (TWRC), which can double the data rate of communications comparing to the traditional one-way relay channel (OWRC). Because of the broadcasting nature of wireless transmissions, secure transmission is an appealing research topic. We take secrecy rate consideration into the optimization of the TWRC. Overall we provide near-optimal solutions for the secrecy rate maximization problems of the TWRC with imperfect channel state information (ICSI). A much lower complexity optimal SOCP solution is provided for SNR balancing of the TWRC without secrecy consideration. We first look at a flat fading TWRC network model with a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) relay where perfect channel state information (CSI) is assumed available. We then formulate an optimization problem, with the objective to minimize the relay’s power usage under the constraints that the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the two transceivers should exceed a preset threshold. A low-complexity optimal beamforming solution is provided to this optimization problem by reformulating it in the form of second-order cone programming (SOCP). Later in the thesis, we consider the presence of an eavesdropper and address the beamforming optimization for minimizing the relay’s power with the constraints of the secrecy rates of the two transceivers. A semi-definite programming (SDP) based searching algorithm is proposed to find a near-optimal solution. For each search of the proposed approach, the previous non-convex optimization problem is transferred into an SDP problem, which can guarantee the optimality of the beamforming matrix. Afterwards, more realistic imperfect CSI (ICSI) situations are considered for the TWRC network models. As ICSI completely changes the structure and the property of the optimization problems, we reformulate the optimization problems into two scenarios. For the first case, we consider that the relay is an untrusted eavesdropper and in this case an SDP solution is provided to maximize the joint-decoding sum-secrecy rate. For the second case, we investigate the robust beamforming problems where the relay is trusted but there is an external eavesdropper, another SDP solution is provided to maximize the sum-secrecy rate

Low-resolution ADC receiver design, MIMO interference cancellation prototyping, and PHY secrecy analysis.

This dissertation studies three independent research topics in the general field of wireless communications. The first topic focuses on new receiver design with low-resolution analog-to-digital converters (ADC). In future massive multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) systems, multiple high-speed high-resolution ADCs will become a bottleneck for practical applications because of the hardware complexity and power consumption. One solution to this problem is to adopt low-cost low-precision ADCs instead. In Chapter II, MU-MIMO-OFDM systems only equipped with low-precision ADCs are considered. A new turbo receiver structure is proposed to improve the overall system performance. Meanwhile, ultra-low-cost communication devices can enable massive deployment of disposable wireless relays. In Chapter III, the feasibility of using a one-bit relay cluster to help a power-constrained transmitter for distant communication is investigated. Nonlinear estimators are applied to enable effective decoding. The second topic focuses prototyping and verification of a LTE and WiFi co-existence system, where the operation of LTE in unlicensed spectrum (LTE-U) is discussed. LTE-U extends the benefits of LTE and LTE Advanced to unlicensed spectrum, enabling mobile operators to offload data traffic onto unlicensed frequencies more efficiently and effectively. With LTE-U, operators can offer consumers a more robust and seamless mobile broadband experience with better coverage and higher download speeds. As the coexistence leads to considerable performance instability of both LTE and WiFi transmissions, the LTE and WiFi receivers with MIMO interference canceller are designed and prototyped to support the coexistence in Chapter IV. The third topic focuses on theoretical analysis of physical-layer secrecy with finite blocklength. Unlike upper layer security approaches, the physical-layer communication security can guarantee information-theoretic secrecy. Current studies on the physical-layer secrecy are all based on infinite blocklength. Nevertheless, these asymptotic studies are unrealistic and the finite blocklength effect is crucial for practical secrecy communication. In Chapter V, a practical analysis of secure lattice codes is provided

An Overview of Physical Layer Security with Finite Alphabet Signaling

Providing secure communications over the physical layer with the objective of achieving secrecy without requiring a secret key has been receiving growing attention within the past decade. The vast majority of the existing studies in the area of physical layer security focus exclusively on the scenarios where the channel inputs are Gaussian distributed. However, in practice, the signals employed for transmission are drawn from discrete signal constellations such as phase shift keying and quadrature amplitude modulation. Hence, understanding the impact of the finite-alphabet input constraints and designing secure transmission schemes under this assumption is a mandatory step towards a practical implementation of physical layer security. With this motivation, this article reviews recent developments on physical layer security with finite-alphabet inputs. We explore transmit signal design algorithms for single-antenna as well as multi-antenna wiretap channels under different assumptions on the channel state information at the transmitter. Moreover, we present a review of the recent results on secure transmission with discrete signaling for various scenarios including multi-carrier transmission systems, broadcast channels with confidential messages, cognitive multiple access and relay networks. Throughout the article, we stress the important behavioral differences of discrete versus Gaussian inputs in the context of the physical layer security. We also present an overview of practical code construction over Gaussian and fading wiretap channels, and discuss some open problems and directions for future research