Secure transmission mechanism based on time reversal over wireless multipath channels

Abstract

Broadband wireless communication is implemented primarily in a complicated environment. The complex environment with time-varying multi-path propagation characteristics will seriously affect the performance of communication. To solve the problem of insecurity in information transmission in wireless channels, in this paper a system is modeled by using the multi-input single output eavesdropping channel model and the security of information transmission through time reversal technology is ensured. Another problem is that the information focuses on the receiving point. Owing to the temporal and spatial focusing characteristics of the time reversal technology the information near the receiving point can be eavesdropped easily. To solve this problem, a secure transmission scheme based on time reversal technology with artificial noise interference on the transmitter side is proposed. One of the core technologies to solve this problem is to introduce the environment adaptive technique–time reversal in the wireless link. Further, the problem of a wiretap channel in physical layer security research has become a popular research topic in recent years. To solve the problems about the physical layer wiretap channel and multi-path fading in wireless channels, a novel concept combining time reversal technology with physical layer security technology is proposed. In this paper, a physical layer secure transmission scheme based on the joint time reversal technique and artificial noise at the sending end is proposed for the wireless multi-path channel. First, in a typical wiretap channel model the time reversal technique is used to improve the security of the information transmission process by using the properties of spatial and temporal focusing. It refers to the fact that information can be focused at a given moment and in space. Second, as the information is easily eavesdropped near the focus point, artificial noise is added to the sending end to disrupt the ability of the eavesdropper to eavesdrop. The artificial noise has no effect on legitimate user due to the use of null-space artificial noise in legitimate user. Based on this scheme, a closed expression, such as secure signal-to-interference and signal-to-noise ratio, an achievable secrecy rate and bit error rate are obtained, and the influences of the number of antennas, signal-to-noise ratio, and artificial noise are analyzed. The theoretical analysis and simulation results show that the proposed scheme has a higher secrecy signal-to-noise ratio, a higher rate of secrecy, and a lower bit error rate of the legitimate user than the the existing physical layer security schemes.