Generalized Tag-Based Physical-Layer Authentication Under Frequency Selective Fading Channels

Abstract

Physical Layer Authentication (PLA) in wireless systems has drawn much attention because it can provide information-theoretic security. However, the performance of the prior PLA schemes significantly declines under a frequency selective fading channel and the theoretical analysis of a PLA scheme becomes extremely challenging under a frequency selective fading channel as compared to that under a frequency flat fading channel. This paper addresses the problem of authenticating transmitters at the physical layer under a frequency selective fading channel. We propose two tag-based PLA schemes under a frequency selective fading channel. The first scheme is the Generalized Tag-based PLA (GT-PLA) scheme, where the negative effect caused by a frequency selective fading channel is compensated for. If the channel reciprocity holds, we will propose the second scheme to further improve the performance of the GT-PLA scheme, named the Adaptive Generalized Tag-based PLA (AGT-PLA) scheme. We provide the theoretical analysis of both proposed schemes over wireless fading channels in terms of robustness, security, and compatibility, and derive their closed-form expressions. Moreover, we implement the proposed schemes and conduct extensive performance comparisons. Our experimental results demonstrate that the GT-PLA scheme achieves higher robustness over the prior PLA schemes while the AGT-PLA scheme can further improve the performance of the GT-PLA scheme in terms of robustness, security, and compatibility.