Enhancing the secrecy performance in MIMO wiretap channels: A novel transmit antenna selection scheme

In this paper, a novel transmit antenna selection scheme for multiple input multiple output (MIMO) wiretap channels is proposed. This new scheme achieves higher secrecy performance by exploiting eavesdropper´s channel state information. The key idea behind our proposal is to perform the antenna selection aiming to maximize the overall secrecy rate instead of maximizing the instantaneous signal-to-noise ratio of the main channel. In our analysis, we assume that the legitimate receiver and the eavesdropper employ a maximal-ratio combining technique to combine the received signals from the transmitter. Considering Nakagami-m fading channels, a closed-form expression for the secrecy outage probability is derived, which can be used as a quality of service metric. Further, an asymptotic analysis is carried out and the diversity/array gains are obtained. The ergodic secrecy rate is also investigated for the case of multiple input single output wiretap channels. Representative numerical examples are plotted and validated through Monte Carlo simulations. Insightful discussions are drawn from the proposed analysis.