Review

Physical layer security techniques for data transmission for future wireless networks

¹ School of Electronic and Optical Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210094, China
² College of Physics and Information Engineering, Fuzhou University, Fujian, 350116, China
³ School of Information and Communication Engineering, Hainan University, Haikou, 570228, China
⁴ Karary University, Khartoum, 12304, Sudan
⁵ School of Engineering, University of Kent, Canterbury, CT2 7NT, UK

^* Corresponding author (e-mail: jinsong.hu@fzu.edu.cn (Jinsong Hu); shufeng0101@163.com (Feng Shu)

Received: 28 December 2021
Accepted: 31 March 2022

Abstract

The broadcast nature of wireless communication systems makes wireless transmission extremely susceptible to eavesdropping and even malicious interference. Physical layer security technology can effectively protect the private information sent by the transmitter from being listened to by illegal eavesdroppers, thus ensuring the privacy and security of communication between the transmitter and legitimate users. Thus, the main design goal of physical layer security is to increase the performance difference between the link of the legitimate receiver and that of the eavesdropper using well-designed transmission schemes. The development of mobile communication presents new challenges to physical layer security research. This paper provides a survey of the physical layer security research on various promising mobile technologies from secure key generation and keyless techniques, including secure key generation, directional modulation (DM), spatial modulation (SM), covert communication, and intelligent reflecting surface (IRS)-aided communication. Finally, the future topics and the unresolved technical challenges are presented in physical layer security for mobile communications.