Improved Rate of Secret Key Generation Using Passive Re-Configurable Intelligent Surfaces for Vehicular Networks

The reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS) is a new technology that can be utilized to provide security to vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications at the physical layer. In this paper, we achieve a higher key generation rate for V2V communications at lower cost and computational complexity. We investigate the use of a passive RIS as a relay, to introduce channel diversity and increase the key generation rate (KGR), accordingly. In this regard, we consider the subsets of consecutive reflecting elements instead of the RIS as a whole in a time slot, i.e., instead of a single reflector, the subsets of reflectors are utilized to redirect the signal to the receiver via passive beam forming. Simulations are conducted for different sizes of RISs and subsets of reflectors per RIS. From the results obtained, it can be seen that when we consider a subset of reflectors instead of the RIS as a single entity, it becomes increasingly difficult to intercept the signal at the eavesdropper. In the proposed scheme, the KGR reaches up to 6 bps per time slot.