Physical layer authentication scheme in beamspace MIMO systems

Abstract

The broadcast nature of wireless communication makes it vulnerable to various security threats such as spoofing attacks. Physical layer (PL) authentication has emerged as a promising and powerful approach to secure future wireless technologies for next-generation communication networks. In this work, we propose a PL authentication scheme against spoofing attacks based on a novel distance signature that exploits the properties of beamspace multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channels in millimeter-wave (mmWave) networks. The proposed signature is derived from the positions of the principal components in beamspace channel domain by measuring their displacement from the original point and sorting the distance values in descending order based on the phases of the principal components. In addition, a mutual coupling effect is introduced into the system, which is a hardware property of multiple antenna design. This is then combined with the proposed distance signature to form a hybrid signature that further improves the authentication performance. Simulation results have confirmed the validity and effectiveness of our proposed system in terms of detection rate and false alarm.