Optimization of PICSI & SCSI-adaptive Beamforming and SCSI-adaptive Reflection in an IRS-aided PLS Wireless Communication System

The costs of channel estimation, reflection adjustment, and computation have severe impacts on intelligent reflection surface (IRS)-aided physical layer security (PLS) wireless communication systems in practice but are usually overlooked for simplicity in most existing works. This paper considers a multi-antenna base station serving a single-antenna legitimate user with the assistance of a multi-element IRS under the surveillance of a single-antenna eavesdropper. Firstly, we introduce a partial instantaneous CSI and statistical CSI (PICSI-SCSI)-adaptive beamforming and SCSI-adaptive reflection design. Secondly, we maximize the achievable ergodic secrecy rate (ESR) with respect to the PICSI-SCSI-adaptive beamforming and SCSI-adaptive reflection design, resulting in a two-timescale stochastic non-convex problem. Thirdly, we present two stochastic iterative algorithms to reach stationary and approximate stationary points. Moreover, we show that the two proposed designs achieve lower computational complexities and adjustment costs for reflection than the existing PICSI-SCSI-adaptive beamforming and reflection design. Lastly, we numerically demonstrate the two proposed designs’ notable gains over baselines. To our knowledge, this is the first work providing an optimization-based PICSI-SCSI-adaptive beamforming and SCSI-adaptive reflection design in an IRS-aided PLS wireless communication system, achieving promising secure performance at the minimum adjustment cost for reflection.