Physical layer security for optical attocell networks

In this paper, physical layer security for optical attocell networks is studied. The secrecy throughput of four different types of optical attocell deployment, hexagonal (HEX), square, poisson point process (PPP) and hard-core point process (HCPP) are compared. In order to improve system confidentiality, angle diversity transmitters are implemented in optical attocell networks. An angle diversity transmitter usually consists of multiple narrow-beam light-emitting diode (LED) elements with different orientations. Angle diversity transmitters are very suitable for secure transmission since data transmission via narrow light beams can effectively avoid the leakage of messages. Results show that HEX deployment performs the best in terms of secrecy throughput while PPP deployment performs the worst. With the use of angle diversity transmitters, secrecy throughput of optical attocell networks can be significantly improved. Compared with single-element transmitter, over 6 times secrecy throughput improvement can be obtained by using 18-element angle diversity transmitter.