Wireless Endogenous Security for SAGINs: Achieving Ubiquitous Access and Secure Communication in Symbiosis
Zhi Lin, Mengzhao Guo, Chen Han, Yifu Sun, Ruiqian Ma, Kang An, Yuanzhi He, Naofal Al‐Dhahir
Abstract
The space-air-ground integrated network (SAGIN) has received extensive attention due to its wide footprint, high communication capacity, and flexible networking modes. As every coin has two sides, wireless security in such a huge and heterogeneous network becomes more vulnerable than other traditional network architectures. Although the traditional encryption mechanism has guaranteed communication security to a certain extent, it brings many issues such as high computational cost, difficulty in key generation and distribution, compatibility of different encryption standards in heterogeneous networks, and consuming additional resources to guarantee the security, thus degrading the performance of ubiquitous access. Wireless endogenous security (WES) utilizes the dynamic, heterogeneous, and redundant (DHR) inherent security attributes of physical layer resources, such as channel, noise and interference, to achieve wireless security with autonomous defense. In this article, we firstly provide an overview of SAGIN and analyze its two critical requirements: ubiquitous access and secure communications. Then, we thoroughly investigate the concept, application, and potential solutions of WES to achieve symbiotic massive access and secure transmission in SAGIN. As a case study, a hybrid frequency-power-spatial domains (HFPSD) WES scheme is proposed to demonstrate the potential of enhancing efficiency and security of SAGIN with WES solutions. Finally, some future research directions of SAGIN and WES are discussed.