Physical Layer Security of Large Reflecting Surface Aided Communications With Phase Errors

The physical layer security (PLS) performance of a wireless communication link through a large reflecting surface (LRS) with phase errors is analyzed. Leveraging recent results that express the LRS-based composite channel as an equivalent scalar fading channel, we show that the eavesdropper's link is Rayleigh distributed and independent of the legitimate link. The different scaling laws of the legitimate and eavesdroppers signal-to-noise ratios with the number of reflecting elements, and the reasonably good performance even in the case of coarse phase quantization, show the great potential of LRS-aided communications to enhance PLS in practical wireless set-ups.

Automated summary

The analysis of physical layer security (PLS) performance in wireless communication links with a large reflecting surface (LRS) and phase errors shows that LRS-aided communications have great potential to enhance PLS in practical wireless set-ups. The eavesdropper's link is Rayleigh distributed and independent of the legitimate link, demonstrating different scaling laws for legitimate and eavesdroppers signal-to-noise ratios with the number of reflecting elements. Additionally, even with coarse phase quantization, the performance is reasonably good, indicating promising results for PLS enhancements.