Secret Key Generation Assisted by Intelligent Reflecting Surface with
Discrete Phase Shift in Static Environment
Abstract
Physical layer secret key generation is a promising candidate to
achieve one-time-pad encryption approach for wireless communication
system. The main issue of this method is the insufficient secret key
rate. Especially in a static environment, the entropy of the channel
complex coefficient is limited due to the lack of channel
time-variation. To solve the problem, this paper proposes a novel secret
key generation scheme assisted by intelligent reflecting surface (IRS)
with discrete phase. We construct a dynamic time-varying channel by
switching the phase of the reflection elements rapidly and randomly, and
use channel estimation samples to update the secret key. Based on the
common IRS channel model, we derive the expression of secret key rate.
Monte Carlo simulation and numerical results show that the scheme can
update secret key even if the channel coefficient is constant, and the
secret key rate is higher than schemes based on artificial random
signal. In addition, we comprehensively analyze the influence of various
factors, such as the number of reflection elements and the IRS switching
frequency on the secret key rate.