Abstract
Secure antenna polarization modulation, or SAPM, is a method for increasing security at the physical layer via spatial signal distortion. We derive its expected performance in additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channels with the goals of establishing theoretical limits and comparing them to other techniques in a controlled environment. The theory is verified with measurements from a proof-of-concept system, and security is evaluated using information beamwidths calculated from error probability overlook angle. Results indicate that, when compared to conventional methods and keeping the hardware consistent, SAPM has a much narrower angular range of demodulation around the intended receiver-often by over 20°, depending on the receiver's error rate threshold. Different system configurations are explored in this work, including a variety of power allocations and orders of modulation, as well as the effect of antenna design. In all cases, SAPM shows the potential to significantly improve wireless security over other techniques. These findings provide the foundation and motivation for future characterization in practical channels.
Highlights
S ECURITY for wireless communication has become an increasingly important topic over the last decade, with the rapid expansion of networks across the globe and the immense popularity of smart devices
We aim to find a baseline decoupled from non-idealities in the environment, so analysis at this stage assumes line-of-sight (LOS) propagation in additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channels
For beamforming networks (BFNs) using conventional modulation, where error probability is a function of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), the information beam depends solely on the power pattern
Summary
S ECURITY for wireless communication has become an increasingly important topic over the last decade, with the rapid expansion of networks across the globe and the immense popularity of smart devices. As a supplement to traditional cryptography, which tends to be computationally expensive, there has been a resurgence of interest in physical layer security. These are methods implemented at a network’s lowest interconnection layer [1]. For beamforming networks (BFNs), eavesdroppers with high sensitivity and/or the ability to use processing gains may still receive information, especially from radiation sidelobes [5]. It is important to note that this does not require twice the number of antennas—SAPM may be fully implemented on an existing PolSK system with beamforming capabilities. SAPM transmitters may use a single array of dual-polarized antennas with conventional array frontend control (attenuators/phase shifters or a fully-digital BFN).
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