Enhancing the physical layer security with bending beams

TL;DR

This paper investigates how bending beams can enhance physical layer security in wireless communication by preventing eavesdropping and avoiding blockages, outperforming conventional beam-forming methods.

Contribution

It introduces a new analysis of bending beams' security capabilities, including metrics and dependencies, demonstrating their advantages over traditional beam-forming.

Findings

Bending beams improve security against eavesdropping.

They are effective in both line-of-sight and non-line-of-sight scenarios.

Bending beams outperform conventional beam-forming in security metrics.

Abstract

Wavefront engineering for applications in near-field wireless connectivity is gradually becoming common ground. In this landscape, beams that propagate on bent paths are ideal candidates for dynamic blockage avoidance and suppression of potential eavesdropping. In this work we study the physical layer security offered by bending beams, and we demonstrate their capabilities for line-of-sight and non-line-of-sight eavesdropping. We analyze the dependencies between the possible locations of an eavesdropper and the design parameters of such beams, and we introduce metrics to assess their physical layer security performance. Our results demonstrate their superiority with respect to beams generated with conventional beam-forming.