PAPR-Aware Artificial Noise for Secure Massive MIMO Downlink

This paper introduces a new approach to providing secure physical-layer massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) based communications that can improve the energy efficiency of the system. This is achieved by synthesizing orthogonal artificial noise (AN) that has to be constrained to lie in the null space of the legitimate users’ channels while it should lie in the range space of the eavesdropper’s channel. In addition, this AN reduces the peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) of the transmit signal. Indeed, low PAPR signals are preferable and more efficient for low-cost hardware, thus improving the energy consumption of massive MIMO systems. In this paper, we propose a new PAPR-aware precoding scheme based on the use of AN to enhance the secrecy performance of massive MIMO while reducing the PAPR of the transmit signal and guaranteeing excellent transmission quality for legitimate users. The scheme is formulated as a convex optimization problem that can be resolved via steepest gradient descent (GD). Accordingly, we developed a new iterative algorithm, referred to as PAPR-Aware-Secure-mMIMO, that makes use of instantaneous information to solve the optimization problem. Simulation results show the efficiency of our proposed algorithm in terms of PAPR reduction and secrecy, which is also studied with respect to power distribution between useful signal and AN, PAPR targets and the number of BS antennas.