Physical Layer Security

Course content

In this course, we aim to show/provide a rigorous way to develop a security system on the physical layer (PhySec), by taking the physical properties of the communication environments into account. After having attained this course, the students are able to answer questions about a system’s security with a fundamental knowledge about physical layer security.

• Direct data transmission by PhySec: It covers multi-user communications with an additional secrecy constraint. For example, wiretap channels, broadcast channels with confidential messages, etc., and we will analyze the secrecy capacity/capacity region of these channels.
• Key generation by PHYSEC: It covers the secret key generation with the source model and the channel model. In the former case, the legitimate users will observe a common source of randomness and try to agree on a secret key, which is unknown to a potential eavesdropper. In the latter one, one of the legitimate users transmits a random sequence through the channel to the other users and again they try to agree on a key. Practical sequential key distillation will also be covered.
• Authentication: It covers how to identify the legitimate communication partners by channel testing/probing or by the use of the phyiscally unclonable functions.