Research Projects

The security risks are inevitable in wireless transmission due to its broadcast nature. At the same time the advent of non-terrestrial networks (NTNs)-based wireless communication marks a pivotal moment in global connectivity, promises a future of unparalleled connectivity, with billions of devices exchanging vast amounts of data. However, this increased connectivity also exposes us to significant security risks. Due to the wireless transmission and long-distance communication, NTN-based communication is highly vulnerable to the eavesdropping problems. Security vulnerabilities become more challenging due to the broadcasting nature of the radio propagation over which the critical information is being shared. Traditionally, secure transmission is achieved by using complex cryptographic techniques using secret keys. The digital secret key-based cryptographic methods are not sufficient to provide secure transmission in existing and future generation wireless networks due to their computation complexity in detection of cypher key. In response to growing concerns over communication security, the concept of physical layer security (PLS) has emerged as an innovative approach for next generation wireless communication networks, which can be realized without using the upper-layer based complex secrete key generation. PLS aims to exploit the inherent characteristics of the communication channel to create secure communications without relying on traditional cryptographic methods. However, due to the large-scale architecture of NTNs, it is difficult to achieve high secrecy and other quality of service requirements altogether. Thanks to the latest developments in artificial intelligence (AI) that allows us to resolve the challenges in the field of wireless communications. Recently, Huawei announces their plans to bring wireless AI to networks and they have introduced the native AI for extended NTNs. The AI techniques have paved the way towards more intelligent network planning, resource allocation (RA), anomaly detection, etc. The objective of the proposal is to bridge the gap between physical layer security and AI for the advancement of secrecy in NTN-based communication systems. Specifically, a learning-based secure system with HAP-based relaying is considered, where a legitimate transmission from satellite to a remote located ground device takes place in the presence of aerial as well as ground eavesdroppers. For such systems, for the first time, the learning-based physical layer security techniques will be investigated to enhance the security of terrestrial and non-terrestrial integrated systems. For the prototype development, software-defined radio will be used. The proposed research can be applied in many state-of-art key applications where information privacy is important, such as Earth Monitoring, Military and Defence Systems, Internet of Military Things, Smart Cities, Intelligent Transportation, Emergency Response and Crisis Management, etc.

Physical layer security, NTN, ubiquitous connectivity, AI and ML, 6G communication