Privacy Preservation in MIMO-OFDM Localization Systems: A Beamforming Approach
Journal article, 2025
We investigate an uplink MIMO-OFDM localization scenario where a legitimate base station (BS) aims to localize a user equipment (UE) using pilot signals transmitted by the UE, while an unauthorized BS attempts to localize the UE by eavesdropping on these pilots, posing a risk to the UE’s location privacy. To enhance legitimate localization performance while protecting the UE’s privacy, we formulate an optimization problem regarding the beamformers at the UE, aiming to minimize the Cramér-Rao bound (CRB) for legitimate localization while constraining the CRB for unauthorized localization above a threshold. A penalty dual decomposition optimization framework is employed to solve the problem, leading to a novel beamforming approach for location privacy preservation. Numerical results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed approach and demonstrate its superiority over existing benchmarks.
beamforming
Radio localization
location privacy
Cramér-Rao bound
Author
Yuchen Zhang
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST)
Hui Chen
Chalmers, Electrical Engineering, Communication, Antennas and Optical Networks
Musa Furkan Keskin
Chalmers, Electrical Engineering, Communication, Antennas and Optical Networks
Alireza Pourafzal
Chalmers, Electrical Engineering, Communication, Antennas and Optical Networks
Pinjun Zheng
University of British Columbia (UBC)
Henk Wymeersch
Chalmers Area of Advance Transport
Chalmers, Electrical Engineering, Communication, Antennas and Optical Networks
Tareq Y. Al-Naffouri
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST)
IEEE Wireless Communications Letters
2162-2337 (ISSN) 2162-2345 (eISSN)
Vol. 14 7 1979-1983Location Integrity and Security for Beyond 5G Systems
Swedish Research Council (VR) (2023-03821), 2023-12-01 -- 2027-11-30.
A holistic flagship towards the 6G network platform and system, to inspire digital transformation, for the world to act together in meeting needs in society and ecosystems with novel 6G services
European Commission (EC) (101095759-Hexa-X-II), 2022-12-01 -- 2025-06-30.
Localization and Sensing for Perceptive Cell-Free Networks Towards 6G
Swedish Research Council (VR) (2024-04390), 2025-01-01 -- 2028-12-31.
Areas of Advance
Information and Communication Technology
Subject Categories (SSIF 2025)
Communication Systems
Signal Processing
DOI
10.1109/LWC.2025.3560219