NF-SecRIS: RIS-Assisted Near-Field Physical Layer Security via Secure Location Modulation

TL;DR

NF-SecRIS introduces a novel near-field 2D physical layer security system leveraging RIS and secure location modulation, achieving low BER for legitimate users and high BER for eavesdroppers in 6G networks.

Contribution

The paper presents the first 2D range-angle-dependent PLS system using RIS with a low-complexity secure location modulation scheme.

Findings

Legitimate user BER below 10^{-4}

Eavesdropper BER exceeds 40%

Successful implementation of 2D PLS in near-field communication

Abstract

The 6G wireless networks impose extremely high requirements on physical layer secure communication. However, the existing solutions usually can only achieve one-dimensional physical layer security (PLS) in the angle dimension, and cannot achieve PLS in the range dimension. In this paper, we propose the NF-SecRIS system, the first range-angle-dependent (2D) PLS near-field communication system based on ultra-large-scale reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS). We propose the secure location modulation scheme to synthesize the near-field spatial-temporal coding pattern of RIS with extremely low complexity. It ensures that only legitimate user can receive the raw constellations, while potential eavesdroppers at other ranges or angles can only receive the obfuscated constellations. NF-SecRIS operates without requiring synchronization with either transmitter or receiver. We implement a prototype of NF-SecRIS and conduct comprehensive experiments with multiple modulation schemes. The results show that the bit error rate (BER) of legitimate user is below 10^{-4}, while eavesdroppers at other ranges or angles suffer from BER exceeding 40%. It validates the implementation of 2D PLS in near-field communications.