Title
Creating secure wireless regions using configurable beamforming
Abstract
We present a novel approach to network security against passive eavesdroppers by employing a configurable beam-forming technique to create tightly defined regions of coverage for targeted users. In contrast to conventional encryption methods, our security scheme is developed at the physical layer by configuring antenna array beam patterns to transmit the data to specific regions. It is shown that this technique can effectively reduce vulnerability of the physical regions to eavesdropping by adapting the antenna configuration according to the intended user's channel state information. In this paper we present the application of our concept to 802.11n networks where an antenna array is employed at the access point, and consider the issue of minimizing the coverage area of the region surrounding the targeted user. A metric termed the exposure region is formally defined and used to evaluate the level of security offered by this technique. A range of antenna array configurations are examined through analysis and simulation, and these are subsequently used to obtain the optimum array configuration for a user traversing a coverage area.
Year
DOI
Venue
2014
10.1109/PIMRC.2014.7136130
2014 IEEE 25th Annual International Symposium on Personal, Indoor, and Mobile Radio Communication (PIMRC)
Keywords
DocType
ISSN
Beamforming,exposure region(ER),IEEE 802.11n,wireless security
Conference
2166-9570
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
0
0.34
5
Authors
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Yuanrui Zhang101.69
Alan Marshall222528.87
R.F. Woods329145.11
Youngwook Ko48013.71