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Novel transmission schemes, enabled by recent advances in the fields of metamaterial (MTM), leaky-wave antenna (LWA) and directional modulation, are proposed for enhancing the physical layer (PHY) security. MTM-LWAs, which offer compact, integrated, and cost-effective alternatives to the classic phased-array architectures, are particularly of interest for emerging wireless communication systems including Internet-of-Things (IoT). The proposed secure schemes are devised to accomplish the functionalities of directional modulation (DM) transmitters for orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) and non-contiguous (NC) OFDM transmissions, while enjoying the implementation benefits of MTM-LWAs. Specifically, transmitter architectures based on the idea of time-modulated MTM-LWA have been put forth as a promising solution for PHY security for the first time. The PHY security for the proposed schemes are investigated from the point of view of both passive and active attacks where an adversary aims to decode secret information and feed spurious data to the legitimate receiver, respectively. Numerical simulations reveal that even when the adversary employs sophisticated state-of-the-art deep learning based attacks, the proposed transmission schemes are resistant to these attacks and reliably guarantee system security. 

The advancement of future large‐scale wireless networks necessitates the development of cost‐effective and scalable security solutions. Specifically, physical layer (PHY) security has been put forth as a cost‐effective alternative to cryptographic mechanisms that can circumvent the need for explicit key exchange between communication devices. Herein, a space–time‐modulated digitally‐coded metamaterial (MTM) leaky wave antenna (LWA) is proposed that can enable PHY security by achieving the functionalities of directional modulation (DM) using a machine learning‐aided branch‐and‐bound (B&B) optimized coding sequence. Theoretically, it is first shown that the proposed space–time MTM antenna can achieve DM through both the spatial and spectral manipulation of the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing signal. Simulation results are then provided as proof‐of‐principle, demonstrating the applicability of the approach for achieving DM in various communication settings. Furthermore, a prototype of the proposed architecture controlled by a field‐programmable gate array is realized, which achieves DM via an optimized coding sequence carried out by the learning‐aided B&B algorithm corresponding to the states of the MTM LWA's unit cells. Experimental results confirm the theory behind the space–time‐modulated MTM LWA in achieving DM, which is observed via both the spectral harmonic patterns and bit error rate measurements.