TY  - JOUR
AU  - Salama, Amgad A.
AU  - Abdellatif, Ahmed Gamal
AU  - Safwat, Soha
AU  - Shah, Syed T.
AU  - Shawky, Mahmoud A.
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/02/09
TI  - Constellation Warping-Based QAM Signal Watermarking for Secure and Reliable Wireless Communications
JO  - ICCK Transactions on Information Security and Cryptography
T2  - ICCK Transactions on Information Security and Cryptography
JF  - ICCK Transactions on Information Security and Cryptography
VL  - 2
IS  - 1
SP  - 29
EP  - 42
DO  - 10.62762/TISC.2025.407888
UR  - https://www.icck.org/article/abs/TISC.2025.407888
KW  - anti-spoofing
KW  - authentication
KW  - constellation warping
KW  - physical layer security
KW  - QAM
KW  - watermarking
KW  - wireless security
AB  - This paper investigates the performance of constellation warping techniques in QAM signals as a novel approach for physical layer authentication. We introduce a dynamic watermarking method that embeds subtle warping patterns into QAM constellations, enabling receivers to authenticate legitimate transmissions while detecting spoofing attacks. Our time-varying watermarking scheme employs secure key-based pattern generation to resist replay and estimation attacks. Extensive simulations analyze the system's resilience against various attack types (replay, blind spoofing, and estimation-based) across different signal-to-noise ratios. Results demonstrate that the proposed approach achieves high detection rates ($>90%$ at moderate SNRs) with minimal false alarms and negligible impact on communication performance. We further identify optimal warping strengths and authentication thresholds that maximize security while minimizing symbol error rate degradation. The findings establish constellation warping as an effective physical layer security technique for wireless communications systems that face sophisticated spoofing threats.
SN  - 3070-2429
PB  - Institute of Central Computation and Knowledge
LA  - English
ER  - 

@article{Salama2026Constellat,
  author = {Amgad A. Salama and Ahmed Gamal Abdellatif and Soha Safwat and Syed T. Shah and Mahmoud A. Shawky},
  title = {Constellation Warping-Based QAM Signal Watermarking for Secure and Reliable Wireless Communications},
  journal = {ICCK Transactions on Information Security and Cryptography},
  year = {2026},
  volume = {2},
  number = {1},
  pages = {29-42},
  doi = {10.62762/TISC.2025.407888},
  url = {https://www.icck.org/article/abs/TISC.2025.407888},
  abstract = {This paper investigates the performance of constellation warping techniques in QAM signals as a novel approach for physical layer authentication. We introduce a dynamic watermarking method that embeds subtle warping patterns into QAM constellations, enabling receivers to authenticate legitimate transmissions while detecting spoofing attacks. Our time-varying watermarking scheme employs secure key-based pattern generation to resist replay and estimation attacks. Extensive simulations analyze the system's resilience against various attack types (replay, blind spoofing, and estimation-based) across different signal-to-noise ratios. Results demonstrate that the proposed approach achieves high detection rates (\$>90\%\$ at moderate SNRs) with minimal false alarms and negligible impact on communication performance. We further identify optimal warping strengths and authentication thresholds that maximize security while minimizing symbol error rate degradation. The findings establish constellation warping as an effective physical layer security technique for wireless communications systems that face sophisticated spoofing threats.},
  keywords = {anti-spoofing, authentication, constellation warping, physical layer security, QAM, watermarking, wireless security},
  issn = {3070-2429},
  publisher = {Institute of Central Computation and Knowledge}
}