Channel Frequency Response-Based Secret Key Generation in Underwater Acoustic Systems

Preestablished secret keys are often used to encrypt and decrypt data in communication systems, which are not secure once the keys are compromised. One desirable method is to generate secret keys dynamically using correlated channel measurements. We explore this concept in underwater acoustic (UWA) channels, and present a protocol that can generate secret keys dynamically based on the channel frequency response (CFR) in orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing systems. The multi-bit quantization is carried out on the amplitude of each tone, and the Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem codes are used for information reconciliation. Part of the protocol was implemented in lake tests, and multiple data sets were collected. The lake test results verify that the amplitude of CFR can be used as a randomness source for key generation in UWA channels, and we also find the low correlation between the mutual channels of the legitimate users. Based on the lake test results, we incorporate two modules into the protocol for performance improvement. The first module employs the adaptively weighted probing signaling to increase the channel correlation, and the second module of block-sliced key verification is used to deal with channel dynamics and increase the key agreement probability. The simulation results demonstrate the improved performance of the enhanced protocol.