Physical Layer Security in Satellite Communication System Using Nulling Based Approach

Abstract The broadcast properties of satellites communication makes transmission less susceptible to eavesdropping or even negative obstruction. Physical Layer Security (PLS) technique prevents privacy of data sent by the sender from being intercepted by illegal hackers, which ensures the confidentiality and transmission security between the sender and authorized users. The evolution of mobile communications has brought new challenges to physical security research. Data security techniques implemented at the physical layer of satellite communication are proving to be effective on many parameters. Considering the down-link of a satellite communication system, with multiple antennas at Earth station (ES), Eavesdropper, as well as on satellite, an eavesdropper wants to hack the signal of the satellite to the ES. We propose a method by which the signal received by the eavesdropper is in a meaningless form. The proposed method uses nulling based approach, in which the signal transmitted by the satellite gets multiplied by a beamforming vector, which is selected in a manner so that no information can be received by the eavesdropper. The performance of the received data at ES is analyzed in terms of symbol error rate.