Security protection over wireless fading channels by exploiting frequency selectivity

Secure wireless communication has always been a hot research topic due to the vulnerabilities associated with wireless channel. Physical layer aspects to secure wireless communication, based on the information-theoretic security and signal processing methods have gained much recognition over the last decade. Specifically, artificial noise (AN) methods are assumed to be good means for providing security against potential eavesdroppers in multi-input multi-output (MIMO) systems and/or relay systems. However, there are still a large number of nodes which do not have multi-antennas or support sophisticated protocols in wireless networks. In this paper, a novel AN-aided method is proposed to secure wireless communications between the legitimate users (not equipped with multiple antennas) in the presence of an eavesdropper. In this proposed method frequency selective property of wireless channel is exploited. The basic principle is same in which transmitter generate random AN signal utilizing some of the transmission power to confuse eavesdropper. However artificial noise is generated in such a way that it appears to be zero at the sampling time, only for the legitimate receiver while degrading eavesdropper's channel. Artificial noise is specified using the channel state information (CSI) of the legitimate users' link. However, the secrecy of proposed scheme doesn't depend on the secrecy of CSI. Extensive simulation suggests that the proposed scheme can effectively utilized for securing wireless transmissions.