Comparative Study of Physical Layer Secure Key Generation for Wireless Networks

Wireless network security is crucial for modern communication systems, requiring robust security mechanisms to safeguard transmitted data. Physical layer security, leveraging channel characteristics for key generation, has emerged as a promising approach. In this paper, we study the process of generating and sharing keys among authorized users without compromising secrecy. However, existing methods face challenges, particularly with a high rate of errors in the generated keys and the risk of using the same key multiple times, which could compromise security. We have explored generating a unique key for each session. Our study examines the bit generation rate and verify the consistency of the secure key. We found the trade-off between the number of symbols and the quantization levels for quadrature amplitude modulation as well as binary phase shift keying. Further, the discussion delves into the impact of channel non-reciprocity on the process of secure key generation. Moreover, we achieved almost zero bit error rate at high signal-to-noise ratio.