A Survey of Physical Layer Security Techniques for 5G Wireless Networks and Challenges Ahead

Physical layer security which safeguards data confidentiality based on the information-theoretic approaches has received significant research interest recently. The key idea behind physical layer security is to utilize the intrinsic randomness of the transmission channel to guarantee the security in physical layer. The evolution towards 5G wireless communications poses new challenges for physical layer security research. This paper provides a latest survey of the physical layer security research on various promising 5G technologies, including physical layer security coding, massive multiple-input multiple-output, millimeter wave communications, heterogeneous networks, non-orthogonal multiple access, full duplex technology, etc. Technical challenges which remain unresolved at the time of writing are summarized and the future trends of physical layer security in 5G and beyond are discussed.Comment: To appear in IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communication

Artificial Noise: Transmission Optimization in Multi-Input Single-Output Wiretap Channels

We analyze and optimize the secrecy performance of artificial noise (AN) in multi-input single-output wiretap channels with multiple antennas at the transmitter and a single antenna at the receiver and the eavesdropper. We consider two transmission schemes: 1) an on-off transmission scheme with a constant secrecy rate for all transmission periods, and 2) an adaptive transmission scheme with a varying secrecy rate during each transmission period. For the on-off transmission scheme, an easy-to-compute expression is derived for the hybrid outage probability, which allows us to evaluate the transmission outage probability and the secrecy outage probability. For the adaptive transmission scheme where transmission outage does not occur, we derive a closedform expression for the secrecy outage probability. Using these expressions, we determine the optimal power allocation between the information signal and the AN signal and also determine the optimal secrecy rate such that the effective secrecy throughput is maximized for both transmission schemes. We show that the maximum effective secrecy throughput requires more power to be allocated to the AN signal when the quality of the transmitterreceiver channel or the transmitter-eavesdropper channel improves. We also show that both transmission schemes achieve a higher maximum effective secrecy throughput while incurring a lower secrecy outage probability than existing schemes.ARC Discovery Projects Grant DP150103905

Secure and Precise Wireless Transmission for Random-Subcarrier-Selection-Based Directional Modulation Transmit Antenna Array

In this paper, a practical wireless transmission scheme is proposed to transmit confidential messages to the desired user securely and precisely by the joint use of multiple techniques, including artificial noise (AN) projection, phase alignment/beamforming, and random subcarrier selection (RSCS) based on orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), and directional modulation (DM), namely RSCS-OFDM-DM. This RSCS-OFDM-DM scheme provides an extremely low-complexity structure for the desired receiver and makes the secure and precise wireless transmission realizable in practice. For illegal eavesdroppers, the receive power of confidential messages is so weak that their receivers cannot intercept these confidential messages successfully once it is corrupted by AN. In such a scheme, the design of phase alignment/beamforming vector and AN projection matrix depends intimately on the desired direction angle and distance. It is particularly noted that the use of RSCS leads to a significant outcome that the receive power of confidential messages mainly concentrates on the small neighboring region around the desired receiver and only small fraction of its power leaks out to the remaining large broad regions. This concept is called secure precise transmission. The probability density function of real-time receive signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio (SINR) is derived. Also, the average SINR and its tight upper bound are attained. The approximate closed-form expression for average secrecy rate is derived by analyzing the first-null positions of the SINR and clarifying the wiretap region. Simulation and analysis show that the proposed scheme actually can achieve a secure and precise wireless transmission of confidential messages in line-of-propagation channel, and the derived theoretical formula of average secrecy rate is verified to coincide with the exact results well for medium and large scale transmit antenna array or in the low and medium SNR regions

Optimal Closed-Form Designs for Directional Modulation with Practical Hardware Limitations

In this paper, directional modulation (DM) is investigated to enhance physical layer security. Practical transmitter designs are exploited under imperfect channel state information (CSI) and hardware limitations, such as finite-resolution phase shifters (PSs) at transmitter. Considering the most common scenario where eavesdroppers (Eves)' information is completely unknown, we exploit the DM design to optimize legitimate users (LUs)' receiving performance while randomizing the Eves' received signal. Explicitly, tailored for the practical hardware limitations and imperfect CSI in realizing DM, we design optimal precoders in closed-form with Lagrangian and Karush-Kuhn-Tucker conditions, enhancing the practicality of the symbol-level based DM. Simulation demonstrates that the algorithm achieves lower symbol error rate (SER) at the LUs while deteriorating the Eves' SER, leading to an improved secrecy rate over the benchmarks

TAS-Based Incremental Hybrid Decode–Amplify–Forward Relaying for Physical Layer Security Enhancement

In this paper, a transmit antenna selection (TAS)- based incremental hybrid decode-amplify-forward (IHDAF) scheme is proposed to enhance physical layer security in cooperative relay networks. Specifically, TAS is adopted at the source in order to reduce the feedback overhead. In the proposed TAS-based IHDAF scheme, the network transmits signals to the destination adaptive select direction transmission mode, AF mode or DF mode depending on the capacity of the source-relay link and source-relay link. In order to fully examine the benefits of the proposed TAS-based IHDAF scheme, we first derive its secrecy outage probability (SOP) in a closed-form expression. We then conduct asymptotic analysis on the SOP, which reveals the secrecy performance floor of the proposed TAS-based IHDAF scheme when no channel state information is available at the source. Theoretical analysis and simulation results demonstrate that the proposed TAS-based IHDAF scheme outperforms the selective decode-and-forward (SDF), the incremental decodeand-forward (IDF), and the noncooperative direction transmission (DT) schemes in terms of the SOP and effective secrecy throughout, especially when the relay is close to the destination. Furthermore, the proposed TAS-based IHDAF scheme offer a good trade-off between complexity and performance compare with using all antennas at the source.ARC Discovery Projects Grant DP150103905

Physical layer security in cognitive radio networks using improper gaussian signaling

Orientador: Prof. Dr. Evelio Martin Garcia FernandezCoorientador: Prof. Dr. Samuel Baraldi MafraTese (doutorado) - Universidade Federal do Paraná, Setor de Tecnologia, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia Elétrica. Defesa : Curitiba, 25/10/2018Inclui referências: p.55-60Resumo: Em redes de comunicação sem fio que possuem restrições de interferência, a adoção de sinais assimétricos ou impróprios pode atingir taxas de transmissão mais altas do que as obtidas com sinais próprios, devido a maior entropia diferencial destes. Portanto, uma vez que o desempenho de segurança de uma rede está diretamente relacionado a taxa de transmissão de seus usuários, esta tese propõe o emprego de sinais impróprios para melhorar o desempenho do sigilo em redes de Radio Cognitivo. Ate onde sabemos, este e o primeiro trabalho que aborda a Segurança da Camada Física deste tipo de sistema usando sinais assimétricos. Os resultados foram obtidos para dois cenários diferentes em um mesmo modelo de sistema: uma rede cognitiva underlay com uma ligacao direta entre o transmissor secundário e seu receptor, cuja comunicação está sendo espionada. Usuários primários e secundários causam interferência entre si. Em ambos os cenários, apenas a informação estatística do estado do canal foi considerada disponível para os usuários cognitivos. Para o primeiro cenário, em que a localização dos nós do sistema foi definida arbitrariamente, derivamos uma expressao analótica para a Probabilidade de Falha de Sigilo, a principal métrica de desempenho analisada, e foi mostrado que a adoção de sinalização impropria pode ser benéfica tanto para os usuários que causam quanto para os que recebem interferência. Em um segundo cenário, em que a localização dos nos foi distribuída uniformemente sobre uma célula circular, encontramos valores ótimos ou sub-ótimos para a potencia de transmissão e grau de impropriedade dos sinais dos usuários secundários simultaneamente, a fim de otimizar o desempenho de segurança da rede. A otimização foi feita com o auxílio de Algoritmos Genéticos. Em seguida, os benefícios do esquema de transmissão em termos da probabilidade de falha de sigilo e da vazão de dados segura do sistema, bem como o custo de eficiência energética foram avaliados. Os resultados indicam que, para sistemas limitados por interferência, ao buscar por baixas probabilidades de falha de sigilo, e sempre uma estratégia melhor para os usuários secundários adotar algum grau de impropriedade em suas transmissões. Além disso, a adoção de sinais impróprios também pode melhorar as taxas seguras atingíveis no lado dos usuários cognitivos em redes underlay. No entanto, em termos de eficiência energética do sistema, otimizar apenas a potencia de transmissão secundaria e adotar sinais próprios obtém o melhor desempenho. Os resultados apresentados nesta pesquisa são promissores, uma vez que em muitas redes sem fio, inclusive cognitivas, existem restrições de interferência e sinais assimétricos poderiam alcançar um desempenho melhor do que os próprios, o paradigma atual. Palavras-chave: Radio Cognitivo, Segurança na Camada Física, SinaisAbstract: In interference constrained wireless communication networks, adopting asymmetric or improper signals may attain higher transmission rates than those achieved by proper ones, due to the higher differential entropy of the latter. Therefore, since the secrecy performance of a network is directly related to the transmission rate of its users, this thesis proposes employing improper signals in order to enhance the secrecy performance of Cognitive Radio networks. As far as we know, this is the first work that addresses the Physical Layer Security of these type of system by using asymmetric signals. The results were obtained for two different scenarios in the same system model: an underlay cognitive network with a direct link between secondary transmitter and receiver, whose communication is being eavesdropped. Both primary and secondary users cause interference at each other. In both scenarios only Statistical Channel State Information was considered available at the cognitive users. For the first scenario, in which nodes locations were defined arbitrarily, we derived an analytical expression for the Secrecy Outage Probability, the main performance metric analyzed, and it was shown that adopting improper signaling can be beneficial for users either causing or receiving interference. In a second scenario, in which nodes locations were uniformly distributed over a circular cell, we found optimal or suboptimal values of the secondary users transmit power and degree of impropriety, concurrently, in order to optimize the secrecy performance, with the aid of Genetic Algorithms. Then, the benefits of the transmission scheme in terms of the Secrecy Outage Probability and the Secure Throughput of the system, as well as the Secure Energy Efficiency cost were assessed. Results indicate that, for systems with interference constraints, when searching for lower Secrecy Outage Probabilities, it is always a better strategy for the Secondary Users to adopt some degree of impropriety in their transmissions. In addition, adopting improper signals can also improve the achievable secure rates at the cognitive users side in underlay networks. However, in terms of the energy efficiency of the system, optimizing only the secondary transmit power while employing proper signals achieves the best performance. The results presented in this research are promising, since in many wireless channels, including Cognitive Networks, there are interference constraints and asymmetric signals could attain better performance than proper ones, the current paradigm. Keywords: Cognitive Radio Networks, Physical Layer Security, Improper Gaussian Signaling, Secrecy Outage Probability