Adaptive Physical-Layer Security for NextG Low-Latency mmWave Wireless Networks

Award information

Abstract

The active deployment of wireless networks worldwide and the growth of machine-to-machine communications are exacerbating concerns for privacy and secrecy. Physical-layer security, which exploits the random imperfections inherent to wireless channels and devices to provide, e.g., secrecy or authentication, using physical-layer signal processing and coding algorithms, offers an approach to treat security on par with other system-level metrics, such as power consumption, throughput, and latency, at the design stage. There remains, however, a wide gap to bridge between the theory and practice of physical-layer security. This project addresses this challenge by combining hardware and software efforts, including milimeter-wave radio-frequency front-ends with beamforming capability and algorithms with low-latency, to create a physical-layer security monolithically integrated hardware platform. The outcome of this project will be hardware offering “just-in-time secrecy,” in the sense of adapting to link conditions and achieve cost-effective tradeoffs between power, latency, and security.

The first thrust of this project investigates a hardware platform that integrates a broadband antenna array to engineer a physical-layer link suitable for physical-layer security together with a low-latency mixed-signal implementation of codes for secrecy. Efforts also include a security analysis to evaluate the system level tradeoffs incurred by secrecy. The second thrust of this project considers the development of novel front-end capabilities to further the resilience of the physical-layer security scheme, including a hybrid solution for ultra-low latency high precision beam forming and a reconfigurable power amplifier with antenna load variation resilience. The third thrust studies the integration of feedback in the system to sense the wireless environment and adapt the secrecy provided to instantaneous channel conditions.

Publications

1. S.-Y. Wang, M.-C. Chang, and M. R. Bloch, “Covert Joint Communication and Sensing Under Variational Distance Constraint.” accepted to 58th Annual Conference on Information Sciences and Systems, Jan. 2024.

   @misc{Wang2024Covert, author = {Wang, Shi-Yuan and Chang, Meng-Che and Bloch, Matthieu R.}, howpublished = {accepted to \emph{58th Annual Conference on Information Sciences and Systems}}, month = jan, title = {Covert Joint Communication and Sensing Under Variational Distance Constraint}, year = {2024}, groups = {NSF1910859, NSF2148400} }

2. T. Kann, S. Kudekar, and M. Bloch, “A Path Metric Based Construction of Polarization-Adjusted Convolutional Codes.” submitted to IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory, Jan. 2024.

   @misc{Kann2024Path, author = {Kann, Tyler and Kudekar, Shrinivas and Bloch, Matthieu}, howpublished = {submitted to \emph{IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory}}, month = jan, title = {A Path Metric Based Construction of Polarization-Adjusted Convolutional Codes}, year = {2024}, groups = {NSF2148400} }

3. O. Günlü, M. Bloch, and and A. Y. Rafael F. Schaefer, “Nonasymptotic performance limits of low-latency secure integrated sensing and communication systems,” in Proc. of IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing, 2024.

   @inproceedings{Guenlue2024Nonasymptotic, author = {Günlü, Onur and Bloch, Matthieu and Rafael F. Schaefer, and Aylin Yener}, booktitle = {Proc. of IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing}, title = {Nonasymptotic performance limits of low-latency secure integrated sensing and communication systems}, year = {2024}, groups = {NSF1910859, NSF2148400} }

4. N. Blinn and M. R. Bloch, “mmWave Beam Alignment using Hierarchical Codebooks and Successive Subtree Elimination.” submitted to IEEE Transactions on Machine Learning in Communications and Networking, Sep. 2023.

   @misc{Blinn2022mmWave, author = {Blinn, Nathan and Bloch, Matthieu R.}, howpublished = {submitted to \emph{IEEE Transactions on Machine Learning in Communications and Networking}}, month = sep, title = {mmWave Beam Alignment using Hierarchical Codebooks and Successive Subtree Elimination}, year = {2023}, eprint = {2209.02896}, groups = {NSF2148400} }

5. L. Luzzi, C. Ling, and M. R. Bloch, “Optimal rate-limited secret key generation from Gaussian sources using lattices,” IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, vol. 69, no. 8, pp. 4944–4960, Aug. 2023.

   We propose a lattice-based scheme for secret key generation from Gaussian sources in the presence of an eavesdropper, and show that it achieves the strong secret key capacity in the case of degraded source models, as well as the optimal secret key / public communication rate trade-off. The key ingredients of our scheme are a lattice extractor to extract the channel intrinsic randomness, based on the notion of flatness factor, together with a randomized lattice quantization technique to quantize the continuous source. Compared to previous works, we introduce two new notions of flatness factor based on L1 distance and KL divergence, respectively, which are of independent interest. We prove the existence of secrecy-good lattices under L1 distance and KL divergence, whose L1 and KL flatness factors vanish for volume-to-noise ratios up to 2πe. This improves upon the volume-to-noise ratio threshold 2π of the L∞ flatness factor.

   @article{Luzzi2022Secret, author = {Luzzi, Laura and Ling, Cong and Bloch, Matthieu R.}, journal = {IEEE Transactions on Information Theory}, title = {Optimal rate-limited secret key generation from Gaussian sources using lattices}, year = {2023}, month = aug, number = {8}, pages = {4944-4960}, volume = {69}, doi = {10.1109/TIT.2023.3266033}, eprint = {2206.10443}, file = {:2023-Luzzi-IEEETransIT-Optimal Rate-Limited Secret Key Generation From Gaussian Sources Using Lattices.pdf:PDF}, groups = {NSF1955401, NSF2148400}, howpublished = {accepted to \emph{IEEE Transactions on Information Theory}} }

6. T. Kann, S. Kudekar, and M. R. Bloch, “Source Polarization-Adjusted Convolutional Codes,” in Proc. of IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory, Taipei, Taiwan, Jun. 2023, pp. 1896–1901.

   Motivated by applications to low-latency secret key generation in physical-layer security, we study Polarization-Adjusted Convolutional (PAC) codes for source coding with side information. Source PAC codes operate in a dual manner to channel PAC codes by introducing a rate-one convolutional code after the polarization transform. The decoding of source PAC codes requires a careful scheduling of the successive cancellation decoder and a careful optimization of the rate profiling. Our empirical results demonstrate the improved performance of source PAC codes over regular polar codes using Successive Cancellation List (SCL) decoding. We illustrate the performance in terms for key generation rate in a secret-key generation setup over an Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) channel, suggesting that PAC codes could improve the performance of physical-layer security schemes at short blocklength.

   @inproceedings{Kann2023Source, author = {Kann, Tyler and Kudekar, Shrinivas and Bloch, Matthieu R.}, booktitle = {Proc. of IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory}, title = {Source Polarization-Adjusted Convolutional Codes}, year = {2023}, address = {Taipei, Taiwan}, month = jun, pages = {1896-1901}, doi = {10.1109/ISIT54713.2023.10206454}, file = {:2021-Kann-ISIT-Source Polarization-Adjusted Convolutional Codes.pdf:PDF}, groups = {NSF2148400}, howpublished = {accepted to \emph{2023 IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory}} }

7. S. Ryu, A. S. Assoa, S. Konno, and A. Raychowdhury, “A 65nm 60mW Dual-Loop Adaptive Digital Beamformer with Optimized Sidelobe Cancellation and On-Chip DOA Estimation for mm-Wave Applications,” in 2023 IEEE Symposium on VLSI Technology and Circuits (VLSI Technology and Circuits), Kyoto, Japan, Jun. 2023, pp. 1–2.

   This paper demonstrates an mm-wave baseband digital beamformer that fully integrates an adaptive sidelobe canceller and on-chip direction of arrival (DOA) estimation. To achieve high energy-efficiency, the DOA estimation loop preemptively adjusts the weights of the phase rotators at the front of the SAR-ADCs, which enables the sidelobe cancellation loop to be implemented with a straightforward structure. For efficient ESPRIT DOA estimation, CORDIC-based QR-iteration is employed to solve eigenvalue decomposition, thus circumventing the need for complex matrix computation. The adaptive beamformer implemented in 65nm CMOS dissipates 60mW at 100MHz while occupying 0.64mm 2 on-chip area. The energy efficiency is 600(330) pJ/symbol with (without) DOA estimation.

   @inproceedings{Ryu202365nm, author = {Ryu, Sigang and Assoa, Adou Sangbone and Konno, Shota and Raychowdhury, Arijit}, booktitle = {2023 IEEE Symposium on VLSI Technology and Circuits (VLSI Technology and Circuits)}, title = {A 65nm 60mW Dual-Loop Adaptive Digital Beamformer with Optimized Sidelobe Cancellation and On-Chip DOA Estimation for mm-Wave Applications}, year = {2023}, address = {Kyoto, Japan}, month = jun, pages = {1-2}, doi = {10.23919/VLSITechnologyandCir57934.2023.10185316}, groups = {NSF2148400}, issn = {2158-9682} }

8. M.-C. Chang, S.-Y. Wang, T. Erdoğan, and M. R. Bloch, “Rate and Detection-Error Exponent Tradeoff for Joint Communication and Sensing of Fixed Channel States,” IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Information Theory, vol. 4, pp. 245–259, May 2023.

   We study the information-theoretic limits of joint communication and sensing when the sensing task is modeled as the estimation of a discrete channel state fixed during the transmission of an entire codeword. This setting captures scenarios in which the time scale over which sensing happens is significantly slower than the time scale over which symbol transmission occurs. The tradeoff between communication and sensing then takes the form of a tradeoff region between the rate of reliable communication and the state detection-error exponent. We investigate such tradeoffs for both mono-static and bi-static scenarios, in which the sensing task is performed at the transmitter or receiver, respectively. In the mono-static case, we develop an exact characterization of the tradeoff in open-loop, when the sensing is not used to assist the communication. We also show the strict improvement brought by a closed-loop operation, in which the sensing informs the communication. In the bi-static case, we develop an achievable tradeoff region that highlights the fundamentally different nature of the bi-static scenario. Specifically, the rate of communication plays a key role in the characterization of the tradeoff and we show how joint strategies, which simultaneously estimate message and state, outperform successive strategies, which only estimate the state after decoding the transmitted message.

   @article{Chang2022Ratea, author = {Chang, Meng-Che and Wang, Shi-Yuan and Erdo\u{g}an, Tuna and Bloch, Matthieu R.}, journal = {IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Information Theory}, title = {Rate and Detection-Error Exponent Tradeoff for Joint Communication and Sensing of Fixed Channel States}, year = {2023}, month = may, pages = {245-259}, volume = {4}, doi = {10.1109/JSAIT.2023.3275877}, eprint = {2210.07963}, groups = {NSF2148400, NSF1955401}, howpublished = {accepted to \emph{IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Information Theory}} }

9. O. Günlü, M. R. Bloch, R. F. Schaefer, and A. Yener, “Secure Integrated Sensing and Communication,” IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Information Theory, vol. 4, pp. 40–53, May 2023.

   This work considers the problem of mitigating information leakage between communication and sensing in systems jointly performing both operations. Specifically, a discrete memoryless state-dependent broadcast channel model is studied in which (i) the presence of feedback enables a transmitter to convey information, while simultaneously performing channel state estimation; (ii) one of the receivers is treated as an eavesdropper whose state should be estimated but which should remain oblivious to part of the transmitted information. The model abstracts the challenges behind security for joint communication and sensing if one views the channel state as a sensitive attribute, e.g., location. For independent and identically distributed states, perfect output feedback, and when part of the transmitted message should be kept secret, a partial characterization of the secrecy-distortion region is developed. The characterization is exact when the broadcast channel is either physically-degraded or reversely-physically-degraded. The partial characterization is also extended to the situation in which the entire transmitted message should be kept secret. The benefits of a joint approach compared to separation-based secure communication and state-sensing methods are illustrated with binary joint communication and sensing models.

   @article{Guenlue2022SecureJSAIT, author = {G\"unl\"u, Onur and Bloch, Matthieu R. and Schaefer, Rafael F. and Yener, Aylin}, journal = {IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Information Theory}, title = {Secure Integrated Sensing and Communication}, year = {2023}, month = may, pages = {40-53}, volume = {4}, doi = {10.1109/JSAIT.2023.3275048}, eprint = {2303.11350}, file = {:2023-Gunlu-JSAIT-Secure Integrated Sensing and Communication.pdf:PDF}, groups = {NSF1955401, NSF2148400}, howpublished = {accepted to \emph{IEEE Journal on Special Areas in Information Theory}} }

10. M.-C. Chang, S.-Y. Wang, and M. R. Bloch, “Sequential Joint Communication and Sensing of Fixed Channel States,” in Proc. of IEEE Information Theory Workshop, Saint-Malo, France, Apr. 2023, pp. 462–467.

    We consider a communication model in which a transmitter attempts to communicate with a receiver over a state-dependent channel and simultaneously estimates the state using strictly causal noisy state observations. The state is assumed to remain constant over the duration of the transmission. We analyze the trade-off between the state-error exponent and the communication rate in the sequential setting, in which the transmitter determines what and how many symbols to transmit in an online manner.

    @inproceedings{Chang2023Sequential, author = {Chang, Meng-Che and Wang, Shi-Yuan and Bloch, Matthieu R.}, booktitle = {Proc. of IEEE Information Theory Workshop}, title = {Sequential Joint Communication and Sensing of Fixed Channel States}, year = {2023}, address = {Saint-Malo, France}, month = apr, pages = {462--467}, doi = {10.1109/ITW55543.2023.10161688}, file = {:2023-Chang-ITW-Sequential Joint Communication and Sensing of Fixed Channel States.pdf:PDF}, groups = {NSF2148400}, howpublished = {accepted to \emph{IEEE Information Theory Workshop}} }