Advanced Physical-layer Security as an App in Programmable Wireless Environments

A programmable metasurface is an artificial planar structure with very low hardware footprint offering a cost effective means to manipulate its incoming electromagnetic field. Comprised of multiple reconfigurable passive unit elements and basic electronic circuitry, metasurfaces are lately gaining increasing interest due to their potential in offering environmental intelligence for diverse wireless communication objectives. In this paper, we employ networked metasurfaces to enforce advanced physical layer security, studying the objective of steering wireless waves in a space to avoid the locations of potential eavesdroppers. In a software-defined networking setting, we employ mobile device location discovery of potential eavesdroppers based on the compressed sensing of electromagnetic waves impinging upon selected metasurfaces. Subsequently, we orchestrate a set of metasurfaces to adaptively avoid the eavesdroppers by using appropriate wave steering commands. Performance evaluation results based on ray-tracing demonstrate the potential of the proposed approach.