Secret Key Generation Using Polar Code-Based Reconciliation Method in 5G

Abstract

Physical layer key generation is one of the promising candidate technology schemes for communication network encryption as it promises to solve the difficulties in traditional cryptographic mechanisms. However, due to the existence of unequal key bits in the process of key generation, the practical application of physical layer key generation is greatly hindered. In this paper, in order to eliminate the key inconsistency problem, we propose a Polar code-based information reconciliation scheme (PIRS) by combining the design mechanism of the 5th generation (5G) physical control channel processing flow in the 5G physical layer protocol. The Monte Carlo simulation results show that our proposed method can significantly reduce the key disagreement rate (KDR) and increase the key generation rate (KGR) for both parties in communication, even when the signal-to-noise ratio is low.