Secure Symbol-Level Precoding in MU-MISO Wiretap Systems

Abstract

Multi-user interference (MUI) is usually considered to be a harmful component in wireless communications. However, recently emerged symbol-level precoding techniques can constructively exploit the MUI by transforming it into useful signal at the receiver and contribute to symbol detection. This paper adopts this concept and aims to investigate the exploitation of the MUI to enhance both physical layer security against eavesdropping and the quality of legitimate transmissions. Particularly, we consider the problem of secure symbol-level precoding in multi-user multi-input single-output (MU-MISO) wiretap systems. Our goal is to design the symbol-level precoder to guarantee the quality of service (QoS) of all legitimate transmissions as well as ensure security against eavesdropping. The symbol-level precoder algorithms for physical layer security are developed under different assumptions about the availability of channel state information (CSI) of the legitimate and eavesdropping channels. Extensive simulation results validate the exploitation of MUI for security and illustrate the effectiveness of our proposed secure symbol-level precoding algorithms.