Beamfocusing and Power Allocation for AN-Based PLS in Multiuser XL-MIMO with Multiple Eavesdroppers

This paper investigates the downlink (DL) physical layer security (PLS) in a near-field (NF) extra-large multiple-input multiple-output MIMO (XL-MIMO) system. To enhance the secrecy rate (SR), null-space artificial noise (AN) is transmitted alongside the confidential message, ensuring orthogonality with legitimate user equipment (LUE) channels. The objective is to maximize the minimum SR by optimizing the NF beamfocusing matrix and power allocation between the signal and AN, considering various channel state information (CSI) conditions and transmit power constraints. The proposed approach uses successive convex approximation (SCA) for beamfocusing optimization and golden section search (GSS) for power allocation. The following open questions are addressed: (i) Can AN transmission further enhance SR for multiple LUEs in the presence of multiple eavesdropping user equipment (EUEs)? (ii) Can null-space AN transmission achieve attractive SR performance even without CSI availability for EUEs? Both questions are affirmatively answered and explored in detail, with an algorithm presented for joint beamfocusing design and AN-aided power allocation. The proposed method outperforms state-of-the-art approaches that either omit AN transmission or rely on maximal-ratio transmission (MRT) for beamfocusing.