Phy-level wireless security

1. A method for communication, comprising:

generating one or more data streams for transmission to respective target receivers, and one or more jamming streams;

selecting Modulation and Coding Schemes (MCSs) for assigning to the data streams, and restricting MCS selection for a given data stream to a partial subset of the MCSs that comprises only the MCSs having at least a selected minimum data rate, based on a criterion that is set to reduce a probability of the data streams being decoded by at least one eavesdropping receiver; and

transmitting the data streams and the jamming streams using an antenna array while applying the selected MCSs.

2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein restricting the selection of the MCS comprises defining the partial subset of the MCSs based on power ratios allocated to the jamming streams and assumed or pre-measured channel statistics of communication channels between the antenna array and the at least one eavesdropping receiver.

3. The method according to claim 1 , wherein restricting the selection of the MCS comprises predefining multiple partial subsets of the MCSs corresponding to respective channel types between the antenna array and the target receivers, determining an actual channel type and selecting the predefined partial subset that corresponds to the actual channel type.

4. The method according to claim 1 , and comprising calculating, based on the criterion, power ratios for allocation to the jamming streams.

5. The method according to claim 4 , wherein calculating the power ratios comprises adapting the power ratios based on Channel State Information (CSI) of communication channels between the antenna array and the target receivers.

6. A communication apparatus, comprising:

data generation circuitry, which is configured to generate one or more data streams for transmission to respective target receivers;

jamming generation circuitry, which is configured to generate one or more jamming streams;

a control unit, which is configured to select Modulation and Coding Schemes (MCSs) for assigning to the data streams, and to restrict MCS selection for a given data stream to a partial subset of the MCSs that comprises only the MCSs having at least a selected minimum data rate, based on a criterion that is set to reduce a probability of the data streams being decoded by at least one eavesdropping receiver; and

transmission circuitry, which is configured to transmit the data streams and the jamming streams using an antenna array while applying the selected MCSs.

7. The apparatus according to claim 6 , wherein the control unit is configured to define the partial subset of the MCSs based on power ratios allocated to the jamming streams and assumed or pre-measured channel statistics of communication channels between the antenna array and the at least one eavesdropping receiver.

8. The apparatus according to claim 6 , wherein the control unit is configured to predefine multiple partial subsets of the MCSs corresponding to respective channel types between the antenna array and the target receivers, to determine an actual channel type, and to select the predefined partial subset that corresponds to the actual channel type.

9. The apparatus according to claim 4 , wherein the control unit is configured to set a power ratio of a given jamming stream at a fixed value.

10. The apparatus according to claim 4 , wherein the control unit is configured to adapt the power ratios based on Channel State Information (CSI) of communication channels between the antenna array and the target receivers.

11. A method for communication, comprising:

generating, for transmission from multiple transmit antennas, one or more data streams for transmission to respective target receivers and one or more jamming streams;

calculating respective beamforming vectors for the jamming streams by:

applying QR factorization to a conjugate of an aggregate matrix of communication channels between the transmit antennas and receive antennas of all the target receivers, to produce a Q matrix;

extracting a subset of columns of the Q matrix to serve as a basis for a vector subspace that is orthogonal to the aggregate matrix of the communication channels; and

calculating the beamforming vectors for the jamming streams from the basis;

beamforming the jamming streams using the calculated beamforming vectors; and

transmitting the data streams to the target receivers using the multiple transmit antennas, and simultaneously transmitting the jamming streams using the multiple transmit antennas.

12. The method according to claim 11 , wherein extracting the subset of the columns comprises extracting last N−N U columns of the Q matrix, N denoting a total number of the transmit antennas, and N u denoting a total number of the receive antennas of all the target receivers.

13. The method according to claim 11 , wherein the aggregate matrix of communication channels is replaced by a matrix obtained from one or more Singular Value Decompositions (SVD) of matrices of the communication channels, which are produced by the target receivers.

14. A communication apparatus, comprising:

data generation circuitry, which is configured to generate one or more data streams for transmission to respective target receivers from multiple transmit antennas;

jamming generation circuitry, which is configured to generate one or more jamming streams;

a control unit, which is configured to calculate respective beamforming vectors for the jamming streams by applying QR factorization to a conjugate of an aggregate matrix of communication channels between the transmit antennas and receive antennas of all the target receivers to produce a Q matrix, extracting a subset of columns of the Q matrix to serve as a basis for a vector subspace that is orthogonal to the aggregate matrix of the communication channels, and calculating the beamforming vectors for the jamming streams from the basis; and

transmission circuitry, which is configured to beam-form the jamming streams using the calculated beamforming vectors, to transmit the data streams to the target receivers using the multiple transmit antennas, and to simultaneously transmit the jamming streams using the multiple transmit antennas.

15. The apparatus according to claim 14 , wherein the control unit is configured to extract last N−N U columns of the Q matrix to serve as the basis, N denoting a total number of the transmit antennas, and N U denoting a total number of the receive antennas of all the target receivers.

16. The apparatus according to claim 14 , wherein the aggregate matrix of communication channels is replaced by a matrix obtained from one or more Singular Value Decompositions (SVD) of matrices of the communication channels, which are produced by the target receivers.

17. The method according to claim 4 , wherein calculating the power ratios comprises setting a power ratio of a given jamming stream at a fixed value.

18. The apparatus according to claim 6 , wherein the control unit is configured to calculate, based on the criterion, power ratios for allocation to the jamming streams.

19. The method according to claim 1 , and comprising, in response to detecting that the partial subset does not contain an MCS that enables successful decoding of the given data stream in the presence of the jamming streams, refraining from transmitting the given data stream and outputting an indication that secure transmission of the given data stream is not possible.

20. The apparatus according to claim 6 , wherein, in response to detecting that the partial subset does not contain an MCS that enables successful decoding of the given data stream in the presence of the jamming streams, the control unit is configured to refrain from transmitting the given data stream and to output an indication that secure transmission of the given data stream is not possible.