Unified interference engineering for wireless information secrecy

Wireless communications are highly susceptible to eavesdropping due to their inherent broadcast nature. Recent works have proposed the use of interference for impeding the capabilities of the eavesdropping receivers in wireless networks. To fully unleash the potential of interference for wireless information secrecy, it is necessary to engineer network interference such that it impedes the capability of eavesdropping receivers while having mild effect on legitimate receivers. The task of generating network interference desirable for wireless secrecy is particularly challenging in heterogeneous networks due to their ample set of configurations. This paper proposes a unified interference engineering strategy (IES) for wireless information secrecy in heterogeneous networks. The unified IES combines zero forcing beamforming, artificial noise generation, cooperative jamming, and interference alignment to fully exploit the network's capability in wireless secrecy. The proposed strategy enables multiple nodes with heterogeneous capabilities to achieve mutually beneficial coordination, thereby leading to a new level of wireless information secrecy.