'Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)'
Abstract
The paper presents an experimental study of data-security in a dual-functional integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) system where sensing and communications are carried out using a single hardware platform. The framework is based on orthogonal frequency division multi-plexing (OFDM) in a multi-user multiple input multiple output (MIMO) software-defined radio (SDR) testbed. Over-the-air experiments are conducted to study the robustness of the ISAC in communication security. Results reveal that the ISAC system can generate a directional beam for sensing while the beam also carries communication data. Once an eavesdropper is positioned next to a legitimate user within an appropriate distance, the eavesdropper can capture the signal and recover the data. This alerts that the ISAC transmission has risk in leaking data to eavesdroppers when the eavesdropper is positioned within the ISAC sensing beam range. Therefore, a waveform-defined security (WDS) framework is evaluated here to defend against the potential eavesdropping in ISAC systems illustrating a degradation the eavesdropping performance by 7 dB
