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Entropy
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Wireless Physical Layer Security Toward 6G
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Wireless Physical Layer Security Toward 6G

A special issue of Entropy (ISSN 1099-4300). This special issue belongs to the section "Information Theory, Probability and Statistics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 August 2026 | Viewed by 1680

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Hui-Ming Wang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Information and Communication Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China
Interests: 6G communications and networks including RIS and ISAC; wireless communications physical layer security; artificial intelligence driven communications
Prof. Dr. Feng Shu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Communications and Information Engineering, Hainan University, Haikou 570228, China
Interests: machine learning; wireless network; intelligent sensing; physical-layer security; RIS-aided wireless communications
Prof. Dr. Ning Xie

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Electronics and Information Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China
Interests: physical-layer security; physical-layer authentication; physical-layer encryption; physical-layer key generation; physical-layer covert communications; information hiding
Prof. Dr. Bin Dai

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Information Science and Technology, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu 610031, China
Interests: physical layer security; network information theory; channel coding; data privacy; wireless federated learning; joint source-channel coding
Dr. Na Li

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Information and Communication Engineering, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing 100876, China
Interests: physical layer security; 6G wireless security; ISAC security; AI empowered wireless security; cross-layer security
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The rollout of fifth-generation (5G) mobile networks and the forthcoming sixth-generation (6G) will bring about fundamental changes in the way we communicate and access services and entertainment. Various critical applications and use cases such as healthcare, financial transactions, e-commerce, transportation, industrial automation, etc., rely on secure and reliable communication for their proper operation. Therefore, the enhancement of the security of the 6G access network is of critical importance. In the past years, wireless physical layer security (WPLS) has been studied and indicated as a possible way to emancipate networks from classical, complexity-based security approaches, which also shows great potential to safeguard the physical layer of the 6G network. In particular, the physical layer of 6G exhibits a series of new characteristics, such as integrated communication and sensing (ISAC), the adoption of reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS), the groundbreaking application of artificial intelligence (AI), etc. These provide new opportunities and challenges for WPLS.

This Special Issue invites submissions of high-quality original technical and survey papers in this vibrant area addressing both the theoretical and practical aspects of WPLS in 6G, hopefully inspiring researchers to identity practical use cases.

Prof. Dr. Hui-Ming Wang
Prof. Dr. Feng Shu
Prof. Dr. Ning Xie
Prof. Dr. Bin Dai
Dr. Na Li
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Entropy is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • wireless physical layer security
  • physical layer secrecy transmission
  • physical layer key agreement
  • physical layer authentication
  • physical layer security for ISAC
  • AI driven physical layer security

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

21 pages, 5196 KB  
Article
Energy Efficiency Maximization for ME-IRS-Enabled Secure Communications
by Chenxi Liu, Limeng Dong, Yong Li and Wei Cheng
Entropy 2026, 28(4), 432; https://doi.org/10.3390/e28040432 - 12 Apr 2026
Viewed by 264
Abstract
This paper investigates the secrecy energy efficiency (SEE) maximization problem in a downlink multiple-input single-output (MISO) wireless communication system assisted by an intelligent reflecting surface with movable elements (ME-IRS). Unlike a conventional IRS, which has fixed-position elements, the proposed ME-IRS enables dynamic adjustment [...] Read more.
This paper investigates the secrecy energy efficiency (SEE) maximization problem in a downlink multiple-input single-output (MISO) wireless communication system assisted by an intelligent reflecting surface with movable elements (ME-IRS). Unlike a conventional IRS, which has fixed-position elements, the proposed ME-IRS enables dynamic adjustment of element positions to exploit additional spatial degrees of freedom for performance enhancement. However, such flexibility introduces new challenges due to the strong coupling among transmit beamforming, IRS phase shifts, and element positions, as well as the additional power consumption caused by element movement. To address these issues, we formulate an SEE maximization problem by jointly optimizing the transmit beamforming, phase shift matrix, and element positions. The resulting problem is highly non-convex owing to the fractional objective function and coupled variables. To address this challenge, an efficient alternating optimization (AO) framework is developed by leveraging semidefinite relaxation (SDR), successive convex approximation (SCA), and gradient-based methods. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed ME-IRS configuration significantly outperforms conventional fixed-position and discrete-position IRS configurations in terms of SEE, providing valuable insights into the impact of movable region size and system parameters. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Wireless Physical Layer Security Toward 6G)
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22 pages, 629 KB  
Article
Joint Sensing and Secure Communications in RIS-Based Symbiotic Radio Systems
by Junhong Yang and Ke-Wen Huang
Entropy 2026, 28(2), 245; https://doi.org/10.3390/e28020245 - 20 Feb 2026
Viewed by 354
Abstract
We study the problem of joint sensing and secure communications in a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-based symbiotic radio (SR) system. In the considered system, a dual-functional radar and communication base station (DFRC-BS) achieves secure communications with multiple user terminals (UTs), and at the [...] Read more.
We study the problem of joint sensing and secure communications in a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-based symbiotic radio (SR) system. In the considered system, a dual-functional radar and communication base station (DFRC-BS) achieves secure communications with multiple user terminals (UTs), and at the same time, performs a target sensing task. An RIS simultaneously assists the secure communications between the DFRC-BS and the multiple UTs and conveys its own data to the UTs by modulating the radio frequency signal from the DFRC-BS. Two different SR settings are investigated, namely, parasitic SR (PSR) and commensal SR (CSR). In both the PSR and the CSR situations, the echo signal from the sensing target is interfered by the backscattered signal from the RIS. We propose two strategies for the DFRC-BS to handle with the interference from the RIS, namely, (1) directly sensing without interference cancelation, and (2) performing interference cancelation before sensing. For both the two strategies, we aim to maximize the sum secrecy rate from the DFRC-BS to the multiple UTs while ensuring satisfactory performances for the sensing and the backscatter links. A block coordinate ascend algorithm is proposed to solve the established non-convex optimization problems. Simulation results reveal that at the DFRC-BS, performing interference cancelation leads to an improved system performance. Furthermore, compared with PSR, CSR leads to a higher sum secrecy rate between the DFRC-BS and the UTs. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Wireless Physical Layer Security Toward 6G)
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20 pages, 1726 KB  
Article
Breaking Through the Bottleneck of Wireless Physical-Layer Key Generation by Dynamic Agile Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface Antenna (DARISA)
by Yonglin Ma and Hui-Ming Wang
Entropy 2026, 28(2), 146; https://doi.org/10.3390/e28020146 - 28 Jan 2026
Viewed by 431
Abstract
In widely deployed Internet of Things (IoT) scenarios, physical-layer key generation (PLKG) serves as a useful complement to conventional cryptographic methods, yet it often suffers from a fundamentally low key generation rate, which becomes particularly severe in quasi-static environments. This low rate is [...] Read more.
In widely deployed Internet of Things (IoT) scenarios, physical-layer key generation (PLKG) serves as a useful complement to conventional cryptographic methods, yet it often suffers from a fundamentally low key generation rate, which becomes particularly severe in quasi-static environments. This low rate is mainly attributed to three key issues: (1) slow channel variations, which provide insufficient randomness and thus limit the key generation rate; (2) correlation between the legitimate channel and the eavesdropping channel, which reduces the uniqueness of the extracted key and further degrades the achievable rate; and (3) insufficient degrees of freedom in the key source, which constrain the key space. To address these challenges, this paper introduces the Dynamic Agile Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface Antenna into physical-layer key generation. By deploying metasurface antennas at both ends and independently applying random phase modulation, the scheme injects two-sided randomness, thereby mitigating the adverse effects of quasi-static channels and legitimate eavesdropper channel correlation. Moreover, by leveraging the dynamic, agile, and reconfigurable characteristics of the metasurface antennas in the key generation process, the proposed approach can further enhance the key generation rate while simultaneously resolving all three issues above. The proposed scheme is developed under a general setting where correlation exists between the legitimate and eavesdropping channels. A closed-form expression for the key capacity is rigorously derived, accompanied by detailed theoretical analysis and simulations. The results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed approach when applied to physical-layer key generation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Wireless Physical Layer Security Toward 6G)
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