Physical Layer Security and Performance Evaluation of Power Line Communication Systems
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Date
01-10-2024
Researcher
Mohan, Vinay
Supervisor
Mathur, Aashish
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Indian Institute of Tehcnology, Jodhpur
Abstract
Power line communication (PLC) is an information and communication technology (ICT) that enables two-way digital communication over existing electric wires or power distribution networks [1]. In recent years, PLC has been the subject of significant interest from researchers, industry, regulatory authorities, and standardization organizations owing to its inherent advantages and applications [2]. Specifically, PLC offers universal network coverage due to the omnipresence of wired infrastructure from urban to rural or remote areas. As a result, PLC has low installation and maintenance costs. Additionally, PLC is capable of delivering high-speed data rates, as demonstrated in the HomePlug Powerline Alliance (HomePlug) and IEEE P1901 standards for home networking [2]. Due to these aforementioned advantages, PLC is contemplated as the most suitable ICT for smart grid communications, smart homes and buildings, smart vehicles, and smart cities [2]. Despite these benefits, PLC suffers from some challenges, such as varying impedance, strong branching effect, frequency and distance dependent attenuation, and non-gaussian noise [4]. On the other hand, PLC channels are intrinsically broadcast and ubiquitous in nature thereby widening the potential of an intrusion and making them more vulnerable to eavesdropping and jamming [5]. Therefore, offering unbreachable data security is always a significant issue in the PLC networks. Recently, physical layer security (PLS), also known as information-theoretic security, has been extensively studied by researchers in wireless and wired communication systems, where the randomness of the communication channels is exploited in the physical layer to prevent data leakage [3]. PLS is proclaimed as a complimentary approach to safeguard the data instead of entirely relying on traditional cryptographic algorithms. In this research, we investigate the PLS performance of a differential chaos shift keying (DCSK)-based PLC system by utilizing a novel Farlie-Gumbel-Morgenstern (FGM) Copula approach, where a wiretap power line channel model is analyzed to compute the secrecy between the main channel and the wiretap channel [6]. Both PLC channels are considered to be correlated Log-normally distributed while the Bernoulli-Gaussian model characterizes the PLC channel noise [7]. Further, the PLS performance is numerically expressed in terms of secure outage probability (SOP) and strictly positive secrecy capacity (SPSC). To obtain useful insights into the PLC system’s secrecy performance, the asymptotic SOP analysis is conducted. Furthermore, an algorithm is proposed to maximize the secrecy throughput under SOP constraints. Finally, meaningful observations are obtained by analyzing the impact of different system parameters through numerical results. Next, we analyze the PLS performance of PLC systems against multiple eavesdroppers by employing DCSK modulation scheme [8]. A wiretap power line channel model is investigated by considering two different cases: 1) when all the channels are assumed to be independent and identically distributed (IID) following Log-normal distribution; and 2) the wiretap channels are considered to be identical but correlated Log-normally distributed and independent of the main channel. Contemporaneously, the Bernoulli-Gaussian random process models the PLC noise. A comprehensive PLS study of the considered PLC system is characterized in terms of the average secrecy capacity (ASC), SOP, and SPSC. We also propose an algorithm to maximize the secrecy throughput under security and reliability constraints. Moreover, to obtain essential insights, we reveal the impact of various parameters onto the secrecy performance of the proposed PLC system. After studying the secrecy performance of the considered PLC system, this dissertation further evaluates the performance of the PLC systems under random pulse jamming attacks assuming M-ary phase shift keying modulation (MPSK) [9]. Herein, the PLC channel is assumed to follow Log-normal channel gain and the Bernoulli-Gaussian random process describes the nature of PLC noise. Additionally, the state of the jammer is characterized by the Bernoulli random variable. Conditioned upon the jamming activity, we evaluate the probability density function (PDF) of the instantaneous signal-to-jamming-plus-noise ratio (SJNR) and the instantaneous signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Capitalizing on the statistical characterization of the SJNR and SNR, we derive the series-based expressions of the average symbol error rate (ASER) and outage probability (OP) for the considered PLC system. Further, the asymptotic ASER analysis is performed in terms of the coding gain and diversity order in the high SNR regime. In order to gain more insights into ASER and OP analysis of the considered PLC system, we demonstrate the effect of the different system parameters through the numerical results.
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Citation
Mohan, Vinay (2018). Physical Layer Security and Performance Evaluation of Power Line Communication Systems (Doctor's thesis). Indian Institute of Tehcnology, Jodhpur