Directional Modulation-Enhanced Multiple Antenna Arrays for Secure and Precise Wireless Transmission

Abstract

Directional modulation (DM) technique has the ability to enhance the physical layer security (PLS) of wireless communications. Conventional DM schemes are usually based on a single antenna array with the basic assumption that eavesdroppers (Eves) and legitimate users (LUs) are in different directions. However, it is possible that Eves are in the same direction as LUs in practical applications. As a result, signals received by Eves will be approximately the same or even in better quality than those received by LUs. To address the neighbor security issue, we introduce a multiple antenna arrays model at the transmitter side with the help of the artificial noise (AN)-aided DM technique to achieve secure and precise DM transmission in this paper. Meanwhile, to recover the mixed useful signals, two novel DM schemes based on single- and multi-carrier multiple antenna arrays model are proposed, respectively. In addition, the symbol error rate (SER), secrecy rate, and robustness performance of the proposed DM schemes were analyzed and simulated. Simulations validate the effectiveness of the proposed DM schemes and demonstrate that multiple antenna arrays model based DM methods outperform single antenna array model aided DM methods in security.