On the average secrecy capacity for indoor visible light communication systems

Abstract For visible light communication (VLC), the light signals are transmitted without optical fibers or any sort of wave-guiding. Due to the inherent broadcast nature, physical-layer security emerges as a promising method to protect information delivery from eavesdropping. As for the secrecy capacity of VLC channel, there exist two features. In one way, the limited optical power makes the common capacity expressions in radio-frequency (RF) communication unapplicable for VLC. In another way, several correlated geometrical parameters directly alters the Lambertian model of indoor VLC channel, which gives the secrecy capacity more meanings. However, the issue considering both aspects has not been studied recently. In this paper, from the practical scenarios, we extract a typical geometrical model to reveal the mobility principles of the legitimate receiver and the eavesdroppers. Then, we character two typical distributions of the geometrical parameter. Correspondingly, we derive the upper and lower bounds on the average secrecy capacity, which have the closed forms. Finally, simulation results show that our upper and lower bounds are tight at high optical signal-to-noise rates (OSNRs). Moreover, the geometrical features of VLC systems and distribution parameters of the receiver mobility are effectively reveal by the bounds.