Polar coding for the multiple access wiretap channel via rate-splitting and cooperative jamming

Abstract

We consider strongly secure communication over a discrete memoryless multiple access wiretap channel with two transmitters. No degradation or symmetry assumptions are made on the channel. Our main result is that any rate pair known to be achievable with a random coding like proof, is also achievable with an explicit and low-complexity polar coding scheme. Moreover, if the rate pair is known to be achievable without time-sharing, then time-sharing is not needed in our polar coding scheme as well. Our proof technique relies on rate-splitting, which introduces two virtual transmitters, and cooperative jamming strategies implemented by these virtual transmitters. Specifically, our coding scheme combines point-to-point codes that either aim at secretly conveying a message to the legitimate receiver or at performing cooperative jamming. Each point-to-point code relies on block Markov encoding to be able to deal with an arbitrary channel and strong secrecy. Consequently, our coding scheme is the combination of inter-dependent block Markov constructions. We assess reliability and strong secrecy through a detailed analysis of the dependencies between the random variables involved in the scheme.