Delay-doppler-based key generation using OTFS

Abstract

Key generation for secure communication is challenging in high-mobility scenarios due to the low coherence time. This is further exacerbated in frequency-division duplex systems due to the non-reciprocal wireless channel in uplink and downlink. The current work leverages the symplectic Fourier transform to convert fast-varying time-frequency domain signals to slow-varying delay-Doppler (DD) domain and utilizes the wireless channel representation in the DD domain to generate shared keys. The proposed approach is evaluated in terms of key generation and mismatch rates considering correlated eavesdropper, as well as the various randomness criteria provided by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.