Constructive Interference Based Secure Precoding: A New Dimension in Physical Layer Security

Conventionally, interference and noise are treated as catastrophic elements in wireless communications. However, it has been shown recently that exploiting known interference constructively can contribute to signal detection ability at the receiving end. This paper exploits this concept to design artificial noise (AN) beamformers constructive to the intended receiver (IR) yet keeping AN disruptive to possible eavesdroppers (Eves). The scenario considered here is a multiple-input single-output wiretap channel with multiple Eves. This paper starts from AN design without any knowledge of Eve’s CSI, builds with solutions with statistical CSI up to full CSI. Both perfect and imperfect channel information have been considered, in particular, with different extent of Eves’ channel responses. The main objective is to improve the receive signal-to-interference and noise ratio at IR through exploitation of AN power in an attempt to minimize the total transmit power, while hindering detection at the Eves. Numerical simulations demonstrate that the proposed constructive AN precoding approach yields superior performance over conventional AN schemes in terms of transmit power. Critically, they show that, while the statistical constraints of conventional approaches may lead to instantaneous IR outages and security breaches from the Eves, the instantaneous constraints of our approach guarantee both IR performance and secrecy at every symbol period.