On the Secrecy Performance of $\alpha$-$\mathcal{F}$ Channels with Pointing Errors

Abstract

This paper investigates the physical layer security (PLS) performance of $\alpha$-$\mathcal{F}$ fading channels with pointing errors under passive and active eavesdropping scenarios. Novel analytical expressions are derived for key PLS metrics, including the probability of strictly positive secrecy capacity, the average secrecy capacity, and the secure outage probability. An asymptotic analysis is also investigated to provide further insights into the system behavior under high signal-to-noise ratio conditions. The analytical results are validated through Monte Carlo simulations, with several performance curves presented for a range of channel and system parameters. All expressions derived in this work are original and have not been previously published.