Leveraging Power Amplifier Distortion for Physical Layer Security

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Alavicheh, Reza Ghasemi, Feys, Thomas, Rahman, MD Arifur, Rottenberg, François
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Alavicheh, Reza Ghasemi
Feys, Thomas
Rahman, MD Arifur
Rottenberg, François
author_facet Alavicheh, Reza Ghasemi
Feys, Thomas
Rahman, MD Arifur
Rottenberg, François
contents This paper introduces a new approach to physical layer security (PLS) by leveraging power amplifier (PA) nonlinear distortion through distortion-aware precoding. While some conventional PLS techniques inject artificial noise orthogonal to legitimate channels, we demonstrate that inherent PA nonlinearities typically considered undesirable can be exploited to enhance security. The zero 3rd order (Z3RO) precoder applies a negative polarity to several antennas to cancel the PA distortion at the user location, resulting in distortion being transmitted in non-user locations. Redirecting the distortion to non-user locations creates interference for potential eavesdroppers, lowering their signal-to-noise-and-distortion ratio (SNDR). Numerical simulations reveal that the Z3RO precoder achieves up to a $2.5\times$ improvement in secrecy rate compared to conventional maximum ratio transmission (MRT) precoding under a $10\%$ outage probability, SNR of $32$ dB and $-5$ dB input back-off (IBO) where the PAs enter the saturation regime.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_07567
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Leveraging Power Amplifier Distortion for Physical Layer Security
Alavicheh, Reza Ghasemi
Feys, Thomas
Rahman, MD Arifur
Rottenberg, François
Signal Processing
This paper introduces a new approach to physical layer security (PLS) by leveraging power amplifier (PA) nonlinear distortion through distortion-aware precoding. While some conventional PLS techniques inject artificial noise orthogonal to legitimate channels, we demonstrate that inherent PA nonlinearities typically considered undesirable can be exploited to enhance security. The zero 3rd order (Z3RO) precoder applies a negative polarity to several antennas to cancel the PA distortion at the user location, resulting in distortion being transmitted in non-user locations. Redirecting the distortion to non-user locations creates interference for potential eavesdroppers, lowering their signal-to-noise-and-distortion ratio (SNDR). Numerical simulations reveal that the Z3RO precoder achieves up to a $2.5\times$ improvement in secrecy rate compared to conventional maximum ratio transmission (MRT) precoding under a $10\%$ outage probability, SNR of $32$ dB and $-5$ dB input back-off (IBO) where the PAs enter the saturation regime.
title Leveraging Power Amplifier Distortion for Physical Layer Security
topic Signal Processing
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.07567