Due to the dramatic increase in high data rate services and in order to meet
the demands of the fifth-generation (5G) networks, researchers from both
academia and industry are exploring advanced transmission techniques, new
network architectures and new frequency spectrum such as the visible light
spectra. Visible light communication (VLC) particularly is an emerging
technology that has been introduced as a promising solution for 5G and beyond.
Although VLC systems are more immune against interference and less susceptible
to security vulnerabilities since light does not penetrate through walls,
security issues arise naturally in VLC channels due to their open and
broadcasting nature, compared to fiber-optic systems. In addition, since VLC is
considered to be an enabling technology for 5G, and security is one of the 5G
fundamental requirements, security issues should be carefully addressed and
resolved in the VLC context. On the other hand, due to the success of physical
layer security (PLS) in improving the security of radio-frequency (RF) wireless
networks, extending such PLS techniques to VLC systems has been of great
interest. Only two survey papers on security in VLC have been published in the
literature. However, a comparative and unified survey on PLS for VLC from
information theoretic and signal processing point of views is still missing.
This paper covers almost all aspects of PLS for VLC, including different
channel models, input distributions, network configurations,
precoding/signaling strategies, and secrecy capacity and information rates.
Furthermore, we propose a number of timely and open research directions for
PLS-VLC systems, including the application of measurement-based indoor and
outdoor channel models, incorporating user mobility and device orientation into
the channel model, and combining VLC and RF systems to realize the potential of
such technologies