In an UAV‐ (unmanned aerial vehicle‐) aided relaying system, the transmitted signal is exposed to free space in two transmission hops which may be overheard by eavesdroppers. Accordingly, physical layer security should be exploited to improve information security. This paper analyzes both (security and reliability) performance aspects of such a system where only one UAV among multiple UAVs, all capable of harvesting energy from radio frequency signals, is adopted. Towards this end, the tight approximated and exact closed‐form expressions of the outage probability at the legitimate destination and the intercept probability at the eavesdropper are first derived. Then, Monte‐Carlo simulations are conducted to verify the derived expressions. Based on these expressions, the protected zone of the selected UAV is also proposed through an exhaustive search. Finally, various results are provided to illustrate the impact of key operation parameters on the system performance and the efficacy of the UAV selection.

Artificial noise, energy harvesting, and overlay communications can assure design metrics of modern wireless networks such as data security, energy efficiency, and spectrum utilization efficiency. This paper studies impact of artificial noise on security capability of energy harvesting overlay networks in which the cognitive transmitter capable of self‐powering its operation by harvesting radio frequency energy and self‐securing its communications against eavesdroppers by generating artificial noise amplifies and forwards the signal of the primary transmitter as well as transmits its individual signal concurrently. To quantify this impact, the current paper firstly suggests accurate expressions of crucial security performance indicators. Then, computer simulations are supplied to corroborate these expressions. Finally, numerous results are demonstrated to expose insights into this impact from which optimum specifications are determined. Notably, primary/cognitive communications can be secured at distinct degrees by flexibly controlling multiple specifications of the suggested system model.

This paper selects an unlicensed relay among available self‐powered relays to not only remain but also secure information transmission from an unlicensed source to an unlicensed destination. The relays harvest energy in signals of the unlicensed source and the licensed transmitter. Then, they spend the harvested energy for their relaying operation. Conditioned on the licensed outage restriction, the peak transmission power restriction, Rayleigh fading, and the licensed interference, the current paper proposes an exact closed‐form formula of the secrecy outage probability to quickly evaluate the secrecy performance of the proposed relay selection method in cognitive radio networks with energy harvesting. The proposed formula is corroborated by computer simulations. Several results illustrate the effectiveness of the relay selection in securing information transmission. Additionally, the security capability is saturated at large peak transmission powers or large preset outage probabilities of licensed users. Furthermore, the security capability depends on many specifications among which the power splitting ratio, the relays’ positions, and the time switching ratio can be optimally selected to obtain the best security performance.

Relay selection is proposed in this paper as an efficient solution to secure information transmission of secondary users against eavesdroppers in energy harvesting cognitive networks. The proposed relay selection method selects a secondary relay among available secondary relays, which are capable of harvesting radio frequency energy in signals of the secondary transmitter and correctly restore secondary message, to curtail signal-to-noise ratio at the wire-tapper. In order to evaluate the security performance of the suggested relay selection method, an exact intercept outage probability formula accounting for peak transmit power confinement, Rayleigh fading, and interference power confinement is firstly derived. Monte-Carlo simulations are then generated to corroborate the proposed formula. Numerous results expose that positions of relays, the number of relays, and parameters of the energy harvesting method significantly influence the security performance while the power confinements on secondary transmitters cause the performance saturation.

This paper exploits a self-powered secondary relay to not only maintain but also secure communications between a secondary source and a secondary destination in cognitive radio networks when source-destination channel is unavailable. The relay scavenges energy from radio frequency (RF) signals of the primary transmitter and the secondary source and consumes the scavenged energy for its relaying activity. Under the maximum transmit power constraint, Rayleigh fading, the primary outage constraint, and the interference from the primary transmitter, this paper suggests an accurate closed-form expression of the secrecy outage probability to promptly assess the security performance of relaying communications in energy scavenging cognitive networks. The validity of the proposed expression is verified by computer simulations. Numerous results demonstrate the security performance saturation in the range of large maximum transmit power or high required outage probability of primary users. Moreover, the security performance is a function of several system parameters among which the relay’s position, the power splitting factor, and the time splitting factor can be optimized to achieve the minimum secrecy outage probability.

This study suggests an energy-scavenging capable unlicensed relay not only to retain communications between an unlicensed sender-recipient pair in underlay cognitive networks but also to secure these communications against eavesdropping of malicious users. Message-securing capability of such a network configuration is assessed through secrecy outage probability (SOP). For this purpose, a precise closed-form formula of the SOP accounting for interference power restriction, Nakagami-m fading, and maximum transmit power restriction is first proposed. Then, the proposed formula is validated by computer simulations. Ultimately, various results are supplied to contrive that the relay position, the time percentage, and the power percentage of the energy-scavenging technique should be appropriately chosen for achieving the best security performance. Moreover, the SOP decreases with lower severity fading level and is constant in the range of high maximum interference power or high maximum transmit power.

Underlay cognitive networks allow unlicenced/secondary users (SUs) to opportunistically access licenced frequency bands, and hence information transmission is undoubtedly wire‐tapped by eavesdroppers. This study analyses security performance of a relay selection scheme, which selects a secondary relay to minimise information wire‐tapping of eavesdroppers, in underlay cognitive networks. Toward this end, the authors propose approximate and asymptotic intercept outage probability expressions which account for interference power constraint for licenced/primary users, maximum transmit power constraint for SUs, independent non‐identical fading channels, and direct channel between secondary source and eavesdropper. Moreover, they determine diversity order and coding gain of this relay selection based on the proposed asymptotic expression. Monte Carlo simulations validate these expressions and numerous results demonstrate that the investigated relay selection prevents the eavesdropper from obtaining full diversity order offered by all relays and source, induces the intercept outage probability saturated at either large maximum transmit power or large maximum interference power, and improves information security performance with respect to the increase in the number of relays.

Cognitive radio networks (CRNs) allow coexistence of unlicensed users (UUs) and licensed users (LUs) and hence, mutual interference between UUs and LUs is neither ignored nor considered as Gaussian‐distributed quantity. Additionally, exploiting jamming signals to purposely interfere with signal reception of eavesdroppers is a feasible solution to improve security performance of CRNs. This paper analyzes reliability‐security trade‐off, which accounts for maximum transmit power constraint, interference power constraint, jamming signal, and Rayleigh fading, and considers interference from LUs as non‐Gaussian‐distributed quantity. Toward this end, exact closed‐form expressions of successful detection probability and successful eavesdropping probability, from which reliability‐security trade‐off is straightforwardly visible, are first suggested and then validated by Monte‐Carlo simulations. Various results demonstrate that interference from LUs considerably decreases both probabilities while jamming signal enlarges the difference between them, emphasizing its effectiveness in improving security performance.