Secret-key generation from wireless channels: Mind the reflections
This work addresses security in wireless communication systems by analyzing a physical property that affects key generation, offering incremental improvements for practical antenna design.
The paper tackled the problem of secret-key generation from wireless channels by proposing a new model that accounts for reflections from receive antennas, revealing that reflections deteriorate the achievable secret-key rate at high SNR, with guidelines provided for system design to prevent eavesdropping.
Secret-key generation in a wireless environment exploiting the randomness and reciprocity of the channel gains is considered. A new channel model is proposed which takes into account the effect of reflections (or re-radiations) from receive antenna elements, thus capturing an physical property of practical antennas. It turns out that the reflections have a deteriorating effect on the achievable secret-key rate between the legitimate nodes at high signal-to-noise-power-ratio (SNR). The insights provide guidelines in the design and operation of communication systems using the properties of the wireless channel to prevent eavesdropping.