Defeating the Eavesdropper: On the Achievable Secrecy Capacity Using Reconfigurable Antennas

Abstract

In this paper, we consider the transmission of confidential messages over slow fading wireless channels in the presence of an eavesdropper. We propose a transmission scheme that employs a single reconfigurable antenna at each of the legitimate partners, whereas the eavesdropper uses a single conventional antenna. A reconfigurable antenna can switch its propagation characteristics over time and thus it perceives different fading channels. It is shown that without channel side information (CSI) at the legitimate partners, the main channel can be transformed into an ergodic regime offering a secrecy capacity gain for strict outage constraints. If the legitimate partners have partial or full CSI, a sort of selection diversity can be applied boosting the maximum secret communication rate. In this case, fading acts as a friend not a foe.