The effect of channel spatial correlation on physical layer security in multi-antenna scenarios

Information-theoretic security at the physical layer has been proposed to increase the privacy of wireless communications due to its achievable characteristics: unbreakability, provability, and quantifiability. An accurate and powerful analytical framework aimed at deriving the achievable security level provided by Gaussian channels is presented and validated. Its accuracy is assessed by mean of a narrowband fading scenario simulator with multi-antenna transceivers. The impact on the security level of a number of aspects, such as the Eavesdropper´s distance as well as the number and distance of antennas in MIMO systems is finally discussed.