Implementation of Physical Layer Security into 5G NR Systems and E2E Latency Assessment

Luis Torres-Figueroa, Markus Hormann, Moritz Wiese, Ullrich J. Monich, Holger Boche, Oliver Holschke, Marc Geitz

Research output: Contribution to journalConference articlepeer-review

4 Scopus citations

Abstract

This paper assesses the impact on the performance that information-theoretic physical layer security (IT-PLS) introduces when integrated into a 5G New Radio (NR) system. For this, we implement a wiretap code for IT-PLS based on a modular coding scheme that uses a universal-hash function in its security layer. The main advantage of this approach lies in its flexible integration into the lower layers of the 5G NR protocol stack without affecting the communication's reliability. Specifically, we use IT-PLS to secure the transmission of downlink control information by integrating an extra pre-coding security layer as part of the physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) procedures, thus not requiring any change of the 3GPP 38 series standard. We conduct experiments using a real-time open-source 5G NR standalone implementation and use software-defined radios for over-the-air transmissions in a controlled laboratory environment. The overhead added by IT-PLS is determined in terms of the latency introduced into the system, which is measured at the physical layer for an end-to-end (E2E) connection between the gNB and the user equipment.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)4044-4050
Number of pages7
JournalProceedings - IEEE Global Communications Conference, GLOBECOM
DOIs
StatePublished - 2022
Event2022 IEEE Global Communications Conference, GLOBECOM 2022 - Virtual, Online, Brazil
Duration: 4 Dec 20228 Dec 2022

Keywords

  • 5G
  • Physical layer security
  • URLLC
  • modular coding scheme
  • software-defined radio
  • wiretap channel

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