Signal domain physical modification for PLS
Salah Eddine Zegrar, Ahmed Naeem, Haji Muhammad Furqan, Hüseyin Arslan · 2022
In wireless communication, the data is conveyed through transmission over a physical signal, occupying a bounded specific space-time-frequency block in hyperspace. The building block of this signal is a distinct waveform that conveys the data symbols. A successful reception or detection of a signal requires the receiver to know the exact location of the transmitted signal in space-time-frequency hyperspace. Moreover, a successful identification requires that the receiver knows the features of the transmitted signal in order to decode the data. The goal of physical layer security (PLS) is to ensure the successful detection and identification of the information at the legitimate receiver while preventing illegitimate receivers from doing that. Initially, this chapter presents an overview of the inherent security characteristics provided by different waveforms against detection and identification. Then, it investigates how securing the control channel signals can affect the secrecy capacity of the communication system. However, inherent security and securing the control signal cannot fulfill the security requirements of all wireless applications. Therefore, in order to provide the required level of security, PLS comes into play, where it includes designing different processes that affect the signal based on the parameters extracted from the observation plane to modify the transmissions to ensure secure communication as highlighted in Chapter 3 (Modification plan).