Evaluating Secrecy Capacity for In-Body Wireless Channels

Muhammad Faheem Awan,Kimmo Kansanen,Niels Neumann,Qiong Wang,Dirk Plettemeier,Mehrab Ramzan,Xiao Fang

doi:10.3390/e21090858

Muhammad Faheem Awan, Kimmo Kansanen + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/e21090858

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Abstract

The next generation of implanted medical devices is expected to be wireless, bringing along new security threats. Thus, it is critical to secure the communication between legitimate nodes inside the body from a possible eavesdropper. This work assesses the feasibility of securing next generation multi-nodal leadless cardiac pacemakers using physical layer security methods. The secure communication rate without leakage of information to an eavesdropper, referred to as secrecy capacity, depends on the signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) of the eavesdropper and legitimate channels and will be used as a performance metric. Numerical electromagnetic simulations are utilized to compute the wireless channel models for the respective links. These channel models can be approximated with a log-normal distribution which can be used to evaluate the probability of positive secrecy capacity and the outage probability of this secrecy capacity. The channels are modeled for three different frequency bands and a comparison between their secrecy capacities is provided with respect to the eavesdropper distance. It has been found that the positive secrecy capacity is achievable within the personal space of the human body for all the frequency bands, with the medical implant communication systems (MICS) band outperforming others.

Highlights

The technological advancements in implanted medical devices have resulted in the rapid growth of personal health systems which include popular wireless medical devices like cardiac pacemakers, glucose monitors, and implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs)
The fundamental parameters in the context of secrecy capacity are the probability of positive secrecy capacity (P pcs ) and the outage probability of secrecy capacity (OPcs )
Our findings show that the physical layer security methods with the use of the secrecy capacity is viable and can be an efficient alternative to secure the implanted medical devices on a physical layer

Summary

Introduction

The technological advancements in implanted medical devices have resulted in the rapid growth of personal health systems which include popular wireless medical devices like cardiac pacemakers, glucose monitors, and implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs). These wireless medical devices are less invasive than traditional wired solutions and provide proper diagnosis and treatment. One of the most important medical device is the cardiac pacemaker, which helps to maintain cardiac rhythms. There are almost one million pacemaker implantations worldwide annually [1]. The electrodes of the so-called leadless cardiac pacemakers in the heart chambers will be wirelessly synchronized with each other and with the subcutaneous implant which will be used to configure the leadless pacemakers and that acts as a relay for external devices

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