Design of Energy-Efficient Artificial Noise for Physical Layer Security in Visible Light Communications

This paper studies the design of energy-efficient artificial noise (AN) schemes in the context of physical layer security in visible light communications (VLC). Two different transmission schemes termed selective AN-aided single-input single-output (SISO) and AN-aided multiple-input single-output (MISO) are examined and compared in terms of secrecy energy efficiency (SEE). In the former, the closest LED luminaire to the legitimate user (Bob) is the information-bearing signal’s transmitter. At the same time, the rest of the luminaries act as jammers transmitting AN to degrade the channels of eavesdroppers (Eves). In the latter, the information-bearing signal and AN are combined and transmitted by all luminaries. When Eves’ CSI is unknown, an indirect design to improve the SEE is formulated by maximizing Bob’s channel’s energy efficiency. A low-complexity design based on the zero-forcing criterion is also proposed. In the case of known Eves’ CSI, we study the design that maximizes the minimum SEE among those corresponding to all eavesdroppers. At their respective optimal SEEs, simulation results reveal that when Eves’ CSI is unknown, the selective AN-aided SISO transmission can archive twice as good SEE as the AN-aided MISO does. In contrast, when Eves’ CSI is known, the AN-aided MISO outperforms by 30%.