Increasing Physical Layer Security through Hyperchaos in VLC Systems

TL;DR

This paper enhances physical layer security in VLC systems by employing hyperchaos-based scrambling with a Henon map, improving security and performance against eavesdropping through advanced synchronization and modulation techniques.

Contribution

It introduces a hyperchaos-based scrambling scheme using a fourth-order Henon map and a sliding mode controller for improved security in VLC systems.

Findings

Lower information leakage compared to existing methods

Improved Bit Error Rate at various SNR levels

Effective synchronization of chaotic maps for secure data transmission

Abstract

Visible Light Communication (VLC) systems have relatively higher security compared with traditional Radio Frequency (RF) channels due to line-of-sight (LOS) propagation. However, they still are susceptible to eavesdropping. The proposed solution of the papers have been built on existing work on hyperchaos-based security measure to increase physical layer security from eavesdroppers. A fourth-order Henon map is used to scramble the constellation diagrams of the transmitted signals. The scramblers change the constellation symbol of the system using a key. That key on the receiver side de-scrambles the received data. The presented modulation scheme takes advantage of a higher degree of the map to isolate the data transmission to a single dimension, allowing for better scrambling and synchronization. A sliding mode controller is used at the receiver in a master-slave configuration for projective synchronization of the two Henon maps, which helps de-scramble the received data. The data is only isolated for the users aware of the key for synchronization, providing security against eavesdroppers. The proposed VLC system is compared against various existing approaches based on various metrics. An improved Bit Error Rate and a lower information leakage are achieved for a variety of modulation schemes at an acceptable Signal-to-Noise Ratio.