Physical Layer Security in Chirp Permuted AFBM

Overview & Synopsis

We propose a physical-layer security scheme for affine filter bank modulation (AFBM), a waveform proposed for sixth-generation (6G) integrated sensing and communications (ISAC). AFBM contains two discrete affine Fourier transforms, one for precoding and one for spreading, and the scheme permutes, with one secret key per transform, the chirp sequence that each transform places between two Fourier stages. A wrong key is then conjugated by a discrete Fourier transform into a dense matrix, the restoration of complex orthogonality fails, and the intrinsic filter-bank interference reaches the detector. Over a doubly-dispersive channel, an eavesdropper with perfect channel state information, co-located with the legitimate receiver and holding either key wrong, keeps a bit error rate near 0.5 and a rate below 0.09 bit/symbol, also under a blind carrier-phase attack. Compared with a single-permutation variant, the double scheme costs about 2 dB of peak-to-average power ratio and enlarges the search space from 10^61 to 10^93.