A broadcast approach for fading wiretap channels

Yingbin Liang, Lifeng Lai, H. Vincent Poor, Shlomo Shamai

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

32 Scopus citations

Abstract

A (layered) broadcast approach is studied for the fading wiretap channel without the channel state information (CSI) at the transmitter. Two broadcast schemes, based on superposition coding and embedded coding, respectively, are developed to encode information into a number of layers and use stochastic encoding to keep the corresponding information secret from an eavesdropper. The layers that can be successfully and securely transmitted are determined by the channel states to the legitimate receiver and the eavesdropper. The advantage of these broadcast approaches is that the transmitter does not need to know the CSI to the legitimate receiver and the eavesdropper, but the scheme still adapts to the channel states of the legitimate receiver and the eavesdropper. Three scenarios of block fading wiretap channels with stringent delay constraints are studied, in which either the legitimate receiver's channel, the eavesdropper's channel, or both channels are fading. For each scenario, the secrecy rate that can be achieved via the broadcast approach developed in this paper is derived, and the optimal power allocation over the layers (or the conditions on the optimal power allocation) is also characterized. A notion of probabilistic secrecy, which characterizes the probability that a certain secrecy rate of decoded messages is achieved during one block, is also introduced and studied for scenarios when the eavesdropper's channel is fading. Numerical examples are provided to demonstrate the impact of the CSI at the transmitter and the channel fluctuations of the eavesdropper on the average secrecy rate. These examples also demonstrate the advantage of the proposed broadcast approach over the compound channel approach.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number6687232
Pages (from-to)842-858
Number of pages17
JournalIEEE Transactions on Information Theory
Volume60
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 2014

Keywords

  • Channel state information
  • fading channel
  • layered broadcast approach
  • secrecy rate
  • wiretap channel

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Information Systems
  • Computer Science Applications
  • Library and Information Sciences

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