Impact of Antenna Mutual Coupling, Propagation, and Nonreciprocity on Propagation-Based Key Establishment

• Main Author: Mahmood, Attiya
• Format: Others
• Published: BYU ScholarsArchive 2018
• Subjects: Physical layer security; Mutual Coupling; Calibration; Spatial correlation; Electrical and Computer Engineering
• Online Access: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/6831; https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=7831&context=etd

Propagation-based key establishment is a physical layer method for generating encryption keys based on two radios observing a reciprocal propagation channel. This work explores the impact of mutual coupling when communicating nodes are equipped with multiple antennas, multipath richness in the propagation environment, and practical limitations caused by the nonreciprocal nature of RF circuits on key establishment. First, network theory is used to formulate a model of a realistic communication system which incorporates transmit sources and receive loads, impedance matching networks, low-noise amplifiers (LNAs), mutually coupled antenna arrays, and a passive eavesdropper. Afterwards, a detailed analysis is performed to quantify the impact of coupling, type of impedance matching network, and proximity of a multi-antenna eavesdropper on key rate metrics. Next, the degradation on key establishment caused by the radiocircuitry non-reciprocal contributions to the propagation channel is analyzed. A calibration technique based on total least square algorithm is used to overcome the non-reciprocity. Results demonstrate that the method is highly effective in removing the impact of non-reciprocal circuit contributions over a range of operational parameters. Lastly, for key establishment, the propagation conditions can cause the available key rate to be significantly different from the secure key rate which takes into account the presence of a passive eavesdropper. To study this in detail, a realistic multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) propagation environment is modeled for two communicating radios and an eavesdropper. Afterwards different propagation conditions are assumed and results demonstrate that secure key rate converges to available key rate when K-factor is small and the eavesdropper is not located very close (< 2.5 wavelength) to one of the nodes.