Physical Layer Securities in Wireless Communication Systems

Due to the tremendous advancement in the semiconductor and microelectronics technologies, wireless technologies have blossomed in the recent decades. The large scale deployment of wireless networks have revolutionized the way people live. They bring a great deal of convenience and enjoyment to us. Undoubtedly, we have become more and more dependent on these wireless technologies. These include cellular and radio frequency identification (RFID) technologies. However, with great technologies also come great risks and threats. Unlike wired transmissions, the nature of wireless transmissions result in the transmitted signals over the channel can be easily intercepted and eavesdropped by malicious adversaries. Therefore, security and privacy of the employed wireless communication system are easily compromised compared to the wired communication system. Consequently, securing wireless network has attracted a lot of attention in the recent years and it has huge practical implications. Securing wireless networks can be and indeed are performed at all layers of a network protocol stack. These include application, network, data link and physical (PHY) layers. The primary focus of our research is on the PHY layer approaches for securing and attacking wireless networks. In this thesis, we identify three research topics and present our results. They are: 1) PHY layer phase encryption (P-Enc) vs XOR encryption (XOR-Enc); 2) PHY layer signaling scheme to ensure the confidentiality of the transmitted messages from the tag to the reader in RFID systems. 3) Active eavesdropping attack framework under frequency hopping spread spectrum (FHSS) RFID systems. In the first work, we introduce a new OFDM encryption scheme which we call OFDM-Enc, different from convectional XOR-Enc, OFDM-Enc encrypts data by multiplying each of in-phase and quadrature component of the time domain OFDM symbol by a keystream bit. We then perform an initial investigation on the security of OFDM-Enc. We show it is secure against all attacks that are considered in this work. Moreover, depending on the modulation type, OFDM would potentially reduce the keystream size required for encryption, while still achieving the required security level. We also conduct simulations to compare OFDM-Enc with conventional XOR-Enc. We show indeed OFDM-Enc is viable and can achieve good performances. Then we extend OFDM-Enc to general communication systems. Since the encryption is essentially done by changing the phase of the data constellations, we just adopt the term P-Enc. In addition, we form mathematical formulations in order to compare between P-Enc and XOR-Enc in terms of efficiency, security and hardware complexity. Furthermore, we show P-Enc at the PHY layer can prevent traffic analysis attack, which cannot be prevented with the upper layer encryptions. Finally, simulations are conducted again to compare the performance of P-Enc and XOR-Enc. In the second work, we are interested in protecting tag's data from leaking or being compromised to malicious adversaries. As discussed earlier, due to the nature of wireless channels, communications between the tag and the reader is susceptible to eavesdropping. The conventional method uses encryption for confidentiality protection of transmitted messages. However, this requires to pre-share keys between the reader and the tag. As a result, a key management and distribution system needs to be put in place. This introduces heavy system overhead. In this work, we first propose a new PHY layer RFID privacy protection method which requires no pre-shared keys and would achieve the same goal. We also perform theoretical analysis to first validate of our proposed scheme. Finally, we conduct experiments to further verify the feasibility our proposed scheme under the passive eavesdropping attack model. In the third work, we present a new attack on the FHSS RFID system called active eavesdropping attack. In most semi-passive and passive RFID systems, tag to reader communications are accomplished via backscattering modulation. This implies the tag is not required to identify the frequency of the legitimate reader's transmitted signal, it simply responds to a reader's query by setting its impedance in the circuitry to low and high to represent bit 1 and 0. The attacker exploits this design weakness of the tag and broadcasts his own continuous wave (CW) at a different frequency. Consequently, the eavesdropper receives two copies of responses: one from his own broadcasted CW and one from reader's CW. We perform theoretical analysis to show the optimal strategy for the attacker in terms of the decoding error probability. Finally, we conduct simulations and experiments to verify with our theoretical results

Power allocation and signal labelling on physical layer security

PhD ThesisSecure communications between legitimate users have received considerable attention recently. Transmission cryptography, which introduces secrecy on the network layer, is heavily relied on conventionally to secure communications. However, it is theoretically possible to break the encryption if unlimited computational resource is provided. As a result, physical layer security becomes a hot topic as it provides perfect secrecy from an information theory perspective. The study of physical layer security on real communication system model is challenging and important, as the previous researches are mainly focusing on the Gaussian input model which is not practically implementable. In this thesis, the physical layer security of wireless networks employing finite-alphabet input schemes are studied. In particular, firstly, the secrecy capacity of the single-input single-output (SISO) wiretap channel model with coded modulation (CM) and bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM) is derived in closed-form, while a fast, sub-optimal power control policy (PCP) is presented to maximize the secrecy capacity performance. Since finite-alphabet input schemes achieve maximum secrecy capacity at medium SNR range, the maximum amount of energy that the destination can harvest from the transmission while satisfying the secrecy rate constraint is computed. Secondly, the effects of mapping techniques on secrecy capacity of BICM scheme are investigated, the secrecy capacity performances of various known mappings are compared on 8PSK, 16QAM and (1,5,10) constellations, showing that Gray mapping obtains lowest secrecy capacity value at high SNRs. We propose a new mapping algorithm, called maximum error event (MEE), to optimize the secrecy capacity over a wide range of SNRs. At low SNR, MEE mapping achieves a lower secrecy rate than other well-known mappings, but at medium-to-high SNRs MEE mapping achieves a significantly higher secrecy rate over a wide range of SNRs. Finally, the secrecy capacity and power allocation algorithm (PA) of finite-alphabet input wiretap channels with decode-and-forward (DF) relays are proposed, the simulation results are compared with the equal power allocation algorithm

Técnicas de equalização e pré-codificação para sistemas MC-CDMA

Mestrado em Engenharia Eletrónica e TelecomunicaçõesO número de dispositivos com ligações e aplicações sem fios está a aumentar exponencialmente, causando problemas de interferência e diminuindo a capacidade do sistema. Isto desencadeou uma procura por uma eficiência espectral superior e, consequentemente, tornou-se necessário desenvolver novas arquitecturas celulares que suportem estas novas exigências. Coordenação ou cooperação multicelular é uma arquitectura promissora para sistemas celulares sem fios. Esta ajuda a mitigar a interferência entre células, melhorando a equidade e a capacidade do sistema. É, portanto, uma arquitectura já em estudo ao abrigo da tecnologia LTE-Advanced sob o conceito de coordenação multiponto (CoMP). Nesta dissertação, considerámos um sistema coordenado MC-CDMA com pré-codificação e equalização iterativas. Uma das técnicas mais eficientes de pré-codificação é o alinhamento de interferências (IA). Este é um conceito relativamente novo que permite aumentar a capacidade do sistema em canais de elevada interferência. Sabe-se que, para os sistemas MC-CDMA, os equalizadores lineares convencionais não são os mais eficientes, devido à interferência residual entre portadoras (ICI). No entanto, a equalização iterativa no domínio da frequência (FDE) foi identificada como sendo uma das técnicas mais eficientes para lidar com ICI e explorar a diversidade oferecida pelos sistemas MIMO MC-CDMA. Esta técnica é baseada no conceito Iterative Block Decision Feedback Equalization (IB-DFE). Nesta dissertação, é proposto um sistema MC-CDMA que une a pré-codificação iterativa do alinhamento de interferências no transmissor ao equalizador baseado no IB-DFE, com cancelamento sucessivo de interferências (SIC) no receptor. Este é construído por dois blocos: um filtro linear, que mitiga a interferência inter-utilizador, seguido por um bloco iterativo no domínio da frequência, que separa eficientemente os fluxos de dados espaciais na presença de interferência residual inter-utilizador alinhada. Este esquema permite atingir o número máximo de graus de liberdade e permite simultaneamente um ganho óptimo de diversidade espacial. O desempenho deste esquema está perto do filtro adaptado- Matched Filter Bound (MFB).The number of devices with wireless connections and applications is increasing exponentially, causing interference problems and reducing the system’s capacity gain. This initiated a search for a higher spectral efficiency and therefore it became necessary to develop new cellular architectures that support these new requirements. Multicell cooperation or coordination is a promising architecture for cellular wireless systems to mitigate intercell interference, improving system fairness and increasing capacity, and thus is already under study in LTE-Advanced under the coordinated multipoint (CoMP) concept. In this thesis, efficient iterative precoding and equalization is considered for coordinated MC-CDMA based systems. One of the most efficient precoding techniques is interference alignment (IA), which is a relatively new concept that allows high capacity gains in interfering channels. It is well known that for MC-CDMA systems standard linear equalizers are not the most efficient due to residual inter carrier interference (ICI). However, iterative frequency-domain equalization (FDE) has been identified as one of the most efficient technique to deal with ICI and exploit the inherent space-frequency diversity of the MIMO MC-CDMA systems, namely the one based on Iterative Block Decision Feedback Equalization (IB-DFE) concept. In this thesis, it is proposed a MC-CDMA system that joins iterative IA precoding at the transmitter with IB-DFE successive interference cancellation (SIC) based receiver structure. The receiver is implemented in two steps: a linear filter, which mitigates the inter-user aligned interference, followed by an iterative frequency-domain receiver, which efficiently separates the spatial streams in the presence of residual inter-user aligned interference. This scheme provides the maximum degrees of freedom (DoF) and allows almost the optimum space-diversity gain. The scheme performance is close to the matched filter bound (MFB)

Scalable and rate adaptive wireless multimedia multicast

The methods that are described in this work enable highly efficient audio-visual streaming over wireless digital communication systems to an arbitrary number of receivers. In the focus of this thesis is thus point-to-multipoint transmission at constrained end-to-end delay. A fundamental difference as compared to point-to-point connections between exactly two communicating sending and receiving stations is in conveying information about successful or unsuccessful packet reception at the receiver side. The information to be transmitted is available at the sender, whereas the information about successful reception is only available to the receiver. Therefore, feedback about reception from the receiver to the sender is necessary. This information may be used for simple packet repetition in case of error, or adaptation of the bit rate of transmission to the momentary bit rate capacity of the channel, or both. This work focuses on the single transmission (including retransmissions) of data from one source to multiple destinations at the same time. A comparison with multi-receiver sequentially redundant transmission systems (simulcast MIMO) is made. With respect to feedback, this work considers time division multiple access systems, in which a single channel is used for data transmission and feedback. Therefore, the amount of time that can be spent for transmitting feedback is limited. An increase in time used for feedback transmissions from potentially many receivers results in a decrease in residual time which is usable for data transmission. This has direct impact on data throughput and hence, the quality of service. In the literature, an approach to reduce feedback overhead which is based on simultaneous feedback exists. In the scope of this work, simultaneous feedback implies equal carrier frequency, bandwidth and signal shape, in this case orthogonal frequency-division multiplex signals, during the event of the herein termed feedback aggregation in time. For this scheme, a constant amount of time is spent for feedback, independent of the number of receivers giving feedback about reception. Therefore, also data throughput remains independent of the number of receivers. This property of audio-visual digital transmission is taken for granted for statically configured, single purpose systems, such as terrestrial television. In the scope of this work are, however, multi-user and multi-purpose digital communication networks. Wireless LANs are a well-known example and are covered in detail herein. In suchlike systems, it is of great importance to remain independent of the number of receivers, as otherwise the service of ubiquitous digital connectivity is at the risk of being degraded. In this regard, the thesis at hand elaborates at what bit rates audio-visual transmission to multiple receivers may take place in conjunction with feedback aggregation. It is shown that the scheme achieves a multi-user throughput gain when used in conjunction with adaptivity of the bit rate to the channel. An assumption is the use of an ideal overlay packet erasure correcting code in this case. Furthermore, for delay constrained transmission, such as in so-called live television, throughput bit rates are examined. Applications have to be tolerant to a certain level of residual error in case of delay constrained transmission. Improvement of the rate adaptation algorithm is shown to increase throughput while residual error rates are decreased. Finally, with a consumer hardware prototype for digital live-TV re-distribution in the local wireless network, most of the mechanisms as described herein can be demonstrated.Die in vorliegender Arbeit aufgezeigten Methoden der paketbasierten drahtlosen digitalen Kommunikation ermöglichen es, Fernsehinhalte, aber auch audio-visuelle Datenströme im Allgemeinen, bei hoher Effizienz an beliebig große Gruppen von Empfängern zu verteilen. Im Fokus dieser Arbeit steht damit die Punkt- zu Mehrpunktübertragung bei begrenzter Ende-zu-Ende Verzögerung. Ein grundlegender Unterschied zur Punkt-zu-Punkt Verbindung zwischen genau zwei miteinander kommunizierenden Sender- und Empfängerstationen liegt in der Übermittlung der Information über erfolgreichen oder nicht erfolgreichen Paketempfang auf Seite der Empfänger. Da die zu übertragende Information am Sender vorliegt, die Information über den Erfolg der Übertragung jedoch ausschließlich beim jeweiligen Empfänger, muss eine Erfolgsmeldung auf dem Rückweg von Empfänger zu Sender erfolgen. Diese Information wird dann zum Beispiel zur einfachen Paketwiederholung im nicht erfolgreichen Fall genutzt, oder aber um die Übertragungsrate an die Kapazität des Kanals anzupassen, oder beides. Grundsätzlich beschäftigt sich diese Arbeit mit der einmaligen, gleichzeitigen Übertragung von Information (einschließlich Wiederholungen) an mehrere Empfänger, wobei ein Vergleich zu an mehrere Empfänger sequentiell redundant übertragenden Systemen (Simulcast MIMO) angestellt wird. In dieser Arbeit ist die Betrachtung bezüglich eines Rückkanals auf Zeitduplexsysteme beschränkt. In diesen Systemen wird der Kanal für Hin- und Rückweg zeitlich orthogonalisiert. Damit steht für die Übermittlung der Erfolgsmeldung eine beschränkte Zeitdauer zur Verfügung. Je mehr an Kanalzugriffszeit für die Erfolgsmeldungen der potentiell vielen Empfänger verbraucht wird, desto geringer wird die Restzeit, in der dann entsprechend weniger audio-visuelle Nutzdaten übertragbar sind, was sich direkt auf die Dienstqualität auswirkt. Ein in der Literatur weniger ausführlich betrachteter Ansatz ist die gleichzeitige Übertragung von Rückmeldungen mehrerer Teilnehmer auf gleicher Frequenz und bei identischer Bandbreite, sowie unter Nutzung gleichartiger Signale (hier: orthogonale Frequenzmultiplexsignalformung). Das Schema wird in dieser Arbeit daher als zeitliche Aggregation von Rückmeldungen, engl. feedback aggregation, bezeichnet. Dabei wird, unabhängig von der Anzahl der Empfänger, eine konstante Zeitdauer für Rückmeldungen genutzt, womit auch der Datendurchsatz durch zusätzliche Empfänger nicht notwendigerweise sinkt. Diese Eigenschaft ist aus statisch konfigurierten und für einen einzigen Zweck konzipierten Systemen, wie z. B. der terrestrischen Fernsehübertragung, bekannt. In dieser Arbeit werden im Gegensatz dazu jedoch am Beispiel von WLAN Mehrzweck- und Mehrbenutzersysteme betrachtet. Es handelt sich in derartigen Systemen zur digitalen Datenübertragung dabei um einen entscheidenden Vorteil, unabhängig von der Empfängeranzahl zu bleiben, da es sonst unweigerlich zu Einschränkungen in der Güte der angebotenen Dienstleistung der allgegenwärtigen digitalen Vernetzung kommen muss. Vorliegende Arbeit zeigt in diesem Zusammenhang auf, welche Datenraten unter Benutzung von feedback aggregation in der Verteilung an mehrere Empfänger und in verschiedenen Szenarien zu erreichen sind. Hierbei zeigt sich, dass das Schema im Zusammenspiel mit einer Adaption der Datenrate an den Übertragungskanal inhärent einen Datenratengewinn durch Mehrbenutzerempfang zu erzielen vermag, wenn ein überlagerter idealer Paketauslöschungsschutz-Code angenommen wird. Des weiteren wird bei der Übertragung mit zeitlich begrenzter Ausführungsdauer, z. B. dem sogenannten Live-Fernsehen, aufgezeigt, wie sich die erreichbare Datenrate reduziert und welche Restfehlertoleranz an die Übertragung gestellt werden muss. Hierbei wird ebenso aufgezeigt, wie sich durch Verbesserung der Ratenadaption erstere erhöhen und zweitere verringern lässt. An einem auf handelsüblichen Computer-Systemen realisiertem Prototypen zur Live-Fernsehübertragung können die hierin beschriebenen Mechanismen zu großen Teilen gezeigt werden

Mobile and Wireless Communications

Mobile and Wireless Communications have been one of the major revolutions of the late twentieth century. We are witnessing a very fast growth in these technologies where mobile and wireless communications have become so ubiquitous in our society and indispensable for our daily lives. The relentless demand for higher data rates with better quality of services to comply with state-of-the art applications has revolutionized the wireless communication field and led to the emergence of new technologies such as Bluetooth, WiFi, Wimax, Ultra wideband, OFDMA. Moreover, the market tendency confirms that this revolution is not ready to stop in the foreseen future. Mobile and wireless communications applications cover diverse areas including entertainment, industrialist, biomedical, medicine, safety and security, and others, which definitely are improving our daily life. Wireless communication network is a multidisciplinary field addressing different aspects raging from theoretical analysis, system architecture design, and hardware and software implementations. While different new applications are requiring higher data rates and better quality of service and prolonging the mobile battery life, new development and advanced research studies and systems and circuits designs are necessary to keep pace with the market requirements. This book covers the most advanced research and development topics in mobile and wireless communication networks. It is divided into two parts with a total of thirty-four stand-alone chapters covering various areas of wireless communications of special topics including: physical layer and network layer, access methods and scheduling, techniques and technologies, antenna and amplifier design, integrated circuit design, applications and systems. These chapters present advanced novel and cutting-edge results and development related to wireless communication offering the readers the opportunity to enrich their knowledge in specific topics as well as to explore the whole field of rapidly emerging mobile and wireless networks. We hope that this book will be useful for students, researchers and practitioners in their research studies

Advanced receivers for distributed cooperation in mobile ad hoc networks

Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) are rapidly deployable wireless communications systems, operating with minimal coordination in order to avoid spectral efficiency losses caused by overhead. Cooperative transmission schemes are attractive for MANETs, but the distributed nature of such protocols comes with an increased level of interference, whose impact is further amplified by the need to push the limits of energy and spectral efficiency. Hence, the impact of interference has to be mitigated through with the use PHY layer signal processing algorithms with reasonable computational complexity. Recent advances in iterative digital receiver design techniques exploit approximate Bayesian inference and derivative message passing techniques to improve the capabilities of well-established turbo detectors. In particular, expectation propagation (EP) is a flexible technique which offers attractive complexity-performance trade-offs in situations where conventional belief propagation is limited by computational complexity. Moreover, thanks to emerging techniques in deep learning, such iterative structures are cast into deep detection networks, where learning the algorithmic hyper-parameters further improves receiver performance. In this thesis, EP-based finite-impulse response decision feedback equalizers are designed, and they achieve significant improvements, especially in high spectral efficiency applications, over more conventional turbo-equalization techniques, while having the advantage of being asymptotically predictable. A framework for designing frequency-domain EP-based receivers is proposed, in order to obtain detection architectures with low computational complexity. This framework is theoretically and numerically analysed with a focus on channel equalization, and then it is also extended to handle detection for time-varying channels and multiple-antenna systems. The design of multiple-user detectors and the impact of channel estimation are also explored to understand the capabilities and limits of this framework. Finally, a finite-length performance prediction method is presented for carrying out link abstraction for the EP-based frequency domain equalizer. The impact of accurate physical layer modelling is evaluated in the context of cooperative broadcasting in tactical MANETs, thanks to a flexible MAC-level simulato