Abstract
Physical layer security (PLS) is pivotal for beyond 5G networks in response to the escalating demand for secure and reliable communication across various applications, which remain susceptible to eavesdropping and computational attacks. This study presents an innovative aerial reconfigurable intelligent surface (A-RIS) assisted PLS scheme, wherein a RIS-equipped unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) amplifies the intended legitimate user's signal while concurrently attenuating the eavesdropper's signal to enhance the secrecy outage probability (SOP). We develop closed-form solutions for the SOP and propose an optimal virtual RIS segmentation strategy, which is subsequently employed in a 3D A-RIS deployment approach to minimize the overall SOP. The numerical findings corroborate the analytical derivations and solutions, revealing that the proposed A-RIS partitioning and 3D A-RIS deployment approach yield superior security compared to conventional PLS benchmarks.