Aligned Space Time Block Codes for the 2-User X Channel with Secrecy Constraints

Interference alignment (IA) is a technique used to reduce the dimension of the interference, where consequently the multiplexing rate is increased. In the 2-user X channel, combining IA with space-time block codes increases the diversity gain. These gains are achieved with the cost of leaked information at unintended receivers, where this leaked information can be used to decode other receiver’s signals. In this paper, we consider each of the two two-antenna receivers as an eavesdropper with 1 or 2 additional eavesdropping antennas. As such, we suggest receiver structures to answer the question: “Is the leaked information sufficient to properly decode the unintended signals?” besides quantifying the leaked information in terms of secrecy sum rates (SSR). Interestingly, we show that the SSR is negative, indicating that the quality of the eavesdropped signals is superior to that of the intended signals. To assure confidentiality, we propose an interleaved multiple rotation-based transformation scheme that neutralizes any a priori knowledge about the structure of the eavesdropped information and rotates the transmitted symbols using orthogonal matrices, preserving both the power and the distance between symbols