On the Impact of Age of Channel Information on Secure RIS-assisted mmWave Networks

Abstract

Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (RISs) have shown great prospects in securing mmWave communication from potential eavesdropping by configuring reflecting elements to strengthen the signal strength at the desired location and creating nulls at potential eavesdropping locations. Acquiring perfect channel information is crucial for optimizing RIS configuration; however, obtaining such information is costly and, as a result, should be performed sparingly. This work studies the impact of the age of channel information on the secrecy performance of a RIS-assisted mmWave network. In particular, we investigate how outdated channel information affects the joint optimization of transmit beamforming and RIS configuration. In our MonteCarlo simulations, we first identify the factors influencing the aging process of a RIS-assisted mmWave channel in both the near and far fields of the RIS. Subsequently, we examine the impact of channel aging on secrecy capacity and demonstrate that adequate secrecy capacity can still be achieved even when channel information is slightly outdated, thus reducing the need for frequent RIS configuration.