Secrecy and energy efficiency in MIMO-ME systems

The problem of resource allocation for energy-efficient secure communications in multiple input multiple output multiple-antenna eavesdropper (MIMO-ME) systems is investigated. Unlike most papers dealing with physical layer security, in this paper the goal of the resource allocation process is not only to maximize the secrecy capacity, but also the system secrecy energy efficiency (SEE), defined as the ratio between the secrecy capacity and the total consumed power and thus measured in bit/Joule, which represents the amount of information bits that can be reliably and securely transmitted per Joule of consumed energy. The energy-efficient resource allocation problem is studied considering both perfect and statistical channel state information (CSI) as to the channel from the legitimate transmitter to the eavesdropper.