RIS-Assisted Physical Layer Security in Emerging RF and Optical Wireless Communications Systems: A Comprehensive Survey

【Author】 Khoshafa, Majid H.; Maraqa, Omar; Moualeu, Jules M.; Aboagye, Sylvester; Ngatched, Telex M. N.; Ahmed, Mohamed H.; Gadallah, Yasser; Di Renzo, Marco

【Source】IEEE COMMUNICATIONS SURVEYS AND TUTORIALS

【影响因子】33.840

【Abstract】Security and latency are crucial aspects in the design of future wireless networks. Physical layer security (PLS) has received a growing interest from the research community in recent years for its ability to safeguard data confidentiality without relying on key distribution or encryption/decryption, and for its latency advantage over bit-level cryptographic techniques. However, the evolution towards the fifth generation wireless technology and beyond poses new security challenges that must be addressed in order to fulfill the unprecedented performance requirements of future wireless communications networks. Among the potential key-enabling technologies, reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) has attracted extensive attention due to its ability to proactively and intelligently reconfigure the wireless propagation environment to combat dynamic channel impairments. Consequently, the RIS technology can be adopted to improve the information-theoretic security of both radio frequency (RF) and optical wireless communications (OWC) systems. It is worth noting that the configuration of RIS in RF communications is different from that in optical systems at many levels (e.g., RIS materials, signal characteristics, and functionalities). This survey article provides a comprehensive overview of the information-theoretic security of RIS-based RF and optical systems. The article first discusses the fundamental concepts of PLS and RIS technologies, followed by their combination in both RF and OWC systems. Subsequently, some optimization techniques are presented in the context of the underlying system model, followed by an assessment of the impact of RIS-assisted PLS through a comprehensive performance analysis. Given that the computational complexity of future communications systems that adopt RIS-assisted PLS is likely to increase rapidly as the number of interactions between the users and infrastructure grows, machine learning (ML) is seen as a promising approach to address this complexity issue while sustaining or improving the network performance. A discussion of recent research studies on RIS-assisted PLS-based systems embedded with ML is presented. Furthermore, some important open research challenges are proposed and discussed to provide insightful future research directions, with the aim of moving a step closer towards the development and implementation of the forthcoming sixth-generation (6G) wireless technology.

【Keywords】Physical layer security (PLS); reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS); smart radio environment; smart radio environment; beyond 5G (B5G) networks; beyond 5G (B5G) networks; multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO); multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO); millimeter wave (mmWave); millimeter wave (mmWave); terahertz (THz); autonomous aerial vehicle (AAV); autonomous aerial vehicle (AAV); device-to-device (D2D) communications; device-to-device (D2D) communications; cognitive radio networks (CRNs); cognitive radio networks (CRNs); simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT); energy harvesting (EH); energy harvesting (EH); mobile edge computing (MEC); mobile edge computing (MEC);

【发表时间】2025 AUG

【收录时间】2025-09-11

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