Generalized tag-based physical-layer authentication under frequency selective fading channels

• Main Authors: Tan, Haijun, Xie, Ning, Lu, Jian, Niyato, Dusit
• Other Authors: School of Computer Science and Engineering
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2023
• Subjects: Engineering::Computer science and engineering; Physical Layer Authentication; Frequency Selective Fading Channel
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/172074
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Physical Layer Authentication (PLA) in wireless systems has drawn much attention because it can provide information-theoretic security. However, the performance of the prior PLA schemes significantly declines under a frequency selective fading channel and the theoretical analysis of a PLA scheme becomes extremely challenging under a frequency selective fading channel as compared to that under a frequency flat fading channel. This paper addresses the problem of authenticating transmitters at the physical layer under a frequency selective fading channel. We propose two tag-based PLA schemes under a frequency selective fading channel. The first scheme is the Generalized Tag-based PLA (GT-PLA) scheme, where the negative effect caused by a frequency selective fading channel is compensated for. If the channel reciprocity holds, we will propose the second scheme to further improve the performance of the GT-PLA scheme, named the Adaptive Generalized Tag-based PLA (AGT-PLA) scheme. We provide the theoretical analysis of both proposed schemes over wireless fading channels in terms of robustness, security, and compatibility, and derive their closed-form expressions. Moreover, we implement the proposed schemes and conduct extensive performance comparisons. Our experimental results demonstrate that the GT-PLA scheme achieves higher robustness over the prior PLA schemes while the AGT-PLA scheme can further improve the performance of the GT-PLA scheme in terms of robustness, security, and compatibility.