Security-Oriented Polar Coding Based on Channel-Gain-Mapped Frozen Bits

Abstract

In this paper, a novel design named security-oriented polar coding (SOPC) is proposed to enhance the physical layer security (PLS), where the active pattern of frozen bits in a transmission is determined by random channel gain of the legitimate link. Since the channel gain value is not exchanged between the legitimate transmitter and the desired receiver, eavesdroppers cannot ascertain the frozen bit pattern engaged in the legitimate polar coding. When the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is low, eavesdroppers are unable to appropriately decode the confidential information delivered over the legitimate link. As the SNR increases, eavesdroppers may have chance to sort out the correct frozen bit pattern through a brute-force search. However, this chance is significantly reduced by our SOPC. We design the SOPC for both single-input-single-output single-antenna eavesdropper (SISOSE) and multiple-input-multiple-output multi-antenna eavesdropper (MIMOME) channels. Its PLS functioning is assessed in terms of the error rate difference between the legitimate receiver and the eavesdropper. Illustrative simulation results substantiate that the SOPC design guarantees degraded decoding performance at eavesdroppers, for both SISOSE and MIMOME channels, even in the presence of a powerful eavesdropper possessing infinite computational resources.