Explainable adversarial learning framework on physical layer key generation combating malicious reconfigurable intelligent surface
File(s)author_accepted_version.pdf (2.76 MB)
Accepted version
OA Location
Author(s)
Wei, Zhuangkun
Hu, Wenxiu
Zhang, Junqing
Guo, Weisi
McCann, Julie A
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS) can both help and hinder the physical layer secret key generation (PL-SKG) of communications systems. Whilst a legitimate RIS can yield beneficial impacts, including increased channel randomness to enhance PL-SKG, a malicious RIS can poison legitimate channels and crack almost all existing PL-SKGs. In this work, we propose an adversarial learning framework that addresses Man-in-the-middle RIS (MITM-RIS) eavesdropping which can exist between legitimate parties, namely Alice and Bob. First, the theoretical mutual information gap between legitimate pairs and MITM-RIS is deduced. From this, Alice and Bob leverage adversarial learning to learn a common feature space that assures no mutual information overlap with MITM-RIS. Next, to explain the trained legitimate common feature generator, we aid signal processing interpretation of black-box neural networks using a symbolic explainable AI (xAI) representation. These symbolic terms of dominant neurons aid the engineering of feature designs and the validation of the learned common feature space. Simulation results show that our proposed adversarial learning- and symbolic-based PL-SKGs can achieve high key agreement rates between legitimate users, and is further resistant to an MITM-RIS Eve with the full knowledge of legitimate feature generation (NNs or formulas). This therefore paves the way to secure wireless communications with untrusted reflective devices in future 6G.
Date Issued
2025-04-01
Date Acceptance
2025-01-01
Citation
IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, 2025, 24 (4), pp.3529-3545
ISSN
1536-1276
Publisher
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Start Page
3529
End Page
3545
Journal / Book Title
IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications
Volume
24
Issue
4
Copyright Statement
Copyright © 2025 IEEE. This is the author’s accepted manuscript made available under a CC-BY licence in accordance with Imperial’s Research Publications Open Access policy (www.imperial.ac.uk/oa-policy)
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2025-01-28