3D Beamforming with Massive Cylindrical Arrays for Physical Layer Secure Data Transmission

Abstract

In this letter, a novel approach for physical layer security is implemented using massive cylindrical antenna arrays. A part of the arrays is used for transmitting a signal reliably from source to destination using highly directive beams. At the same time, the remaining part can be used to mitigate eavesdropping by transmitting a jamming signal through another directive beam toward the eavesdropper. In addition, the cylindrical arrays can mitigate the impact of malicious jamming by placing a null in the array pattern at the destination in the direction of the jammer. The results show that the proposed approach can lead to good jamming mitigation and high secrecy capacity in both 2D and 3D, even when there are errors in determining the location of the eavesdropper.