Secure MIMO SATCOM Transmission

An analysis on the secrecy capacity of a primary MIMO satellite link as compared to that of an eavesdropper is provided. It is presumed that the information sent by the satellite Alice is addressed to a limited number of ground terminals Bob but could potentially be eavesdropped by an unlimited and unknown number of malicious ground terminals Eve that are located within the satellite footprint. In the scenario the satellite link is secured on the physical layer without applying any data encryption. Instead special properties of SATCOM MIMO systems are exploited in terms of designing a satellite link that provides higher channel capacity between Alice and Bob than between Alice and Eve, no matter where Eve is positioned within the satellite footprint. The proposed strategy enables the highest security level since the link cannot be eavesdropped according to information theory without data encryption.