Efficient Key Generation by Exploiting Randomness from Channel Responses of Individual OFDM Subcarriers

Zhang, Junqing ORCID: 0000-0002-3502-2926, Marshall, Alan ORCID: 0000-0002-8058-5242, Woods, Roger and Duong, Trung Q (2016) Efficient Key Generation by Exploiting Randomness from Channel Responses of Individual OFDM Subcarriers. IEEE Transitions on Communications, 64 (6). pp. 2578-2588.

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Abstract

Key generation from the randomness of wireless channels is a promising technique to establish a secret cryptographic key securely between legitimate users. This paper proposes a new approach to extract keys efficiently from the channel responses of individual orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) subcarriers. The efficiency is achieved by: 1) fully exploiting randomness from time and frequency domains and 2) improving the cross-correlation of the channel measurements. Through the theoretical modeling of the time and frequency autocorrelation relationship of the OFDM subcarrier's channel responses, we can obtain the optimal probing rate and use multiple uncorrelated subcarriers as random sources. We also study the effects of non-simultaneous measurements and noise on the cross-correlation of the channel measurements. We find that the cross-correlation is mainly impacted by noise effects in a slow fading channel and use a low-pass filter to reduce the key disagreement rate and extend the system's working signal-to-noise ratio range. The system is evaluated in terms of randomness, key generation rate, and key disagreement rate, verifying that it is feasible to extract randomness from both time and frequency domains of the OFDM subcarrier's channel responses.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Physical layer security, key generation, OFDM, time and frequency autocorrelation, channel reciprocity
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	07 Jan 2019 11:18
Last Modified:	19 Jan 2023 01:08
DOI:	10.1109/TCOMM.2016.2552165
Related URLs:	Author Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3030814

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• Efficient Key Generation by Exploiting Randomness From Channel Responses of Individual OFDM Subcarriers. (deposited 29 Apr 2016 10:10)
  • Efficient Key Generation by Exploiting Randomness from Channel Responses of Individual OFDM Subcarriers. (deposited 07 Jan 2019 11:18) [Currently Displayed]