The Role of Physical Layer Security in Satellite-Based Networks

In the coming years, 6G will revolutionize the world with a large amount of bandwidth, high data rates, and extensive coverage in remote and rural areas. These goals can only be achieved by integrating terrestrial networks with non-terrestrial networks. On the other hand, these advancements are raising more concerns than other wireless links about malicious attacks on satellite-terrestrial links due to their openness. Over the years, physical layer security (PLS) has emerged as a good candidate to deal with security threats by exploring the randomness of wireless channels. In this direction, this paper reviews how PLS methods are implemented in satellite communications. Firstly, we discuss the ongoing research on satellite-based networks by highlighting the key points in the literature. Then, we revisit the research activities on PLS in satellite-based networks by categorizing the different system architectures. Finally, we highlight research directions and opportunities to leverage the PLS in future satellite-based networks

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