In this paper, we study a secure integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) system employing a full-duplex base station with sensing capabilities against a mobile proactive adversarial target—a malicious unmanned aerial vehicle (M-UAV). We develop a game-theoretic model to enhance communication security, radar sensing accuracy, and power efficiency. The interaction between the legitimate network and the mobile adversary is formulated as a non-cooperative Stackelberg game (NSG), where the M-UAV acts as the leader and strategically adjusts its trajectory to improve its eavesdropping ability while conserving power and avoiding obstacles. In response, the legitimate network, acting as the follower, dynamically allocates resources to minimize network power usage while ensuring required secrecy rates and sensing performance. To address this challenging problem, we propose a low-complexity successive convex approximation (SCA) method for network resource optimization combined with a deep reinforcement learning (DRL) algorithm for adaptive M-UAV trajectory planning through sequential interactions and learning. Simulation results demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed method in addressing security challenges of dynamic ISAC systems in 6G, i.e., achieving a Stackelberg equilibrium with robust performance while mitigating the adversary’s ability to intercept network signals.

The approximate message passing (AMP)-based data detection is a highly effective solution for terahertz (THz) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communications, enabling reliable data detection at ultra-high data rates. However, in the uplink of THz MIMO systems, high channel correlation leads to performance degradation and computational inefficiencies. To address these challenges, we develop correlated probability estimation (CPE) for the standard AMP iterative data detection algorithm (AMP-IDA), achieving Bayesian-optimal (BO) bit error rate (BER) performance in highly correlated THz channels. To mitigate the significant computational complexity of CPE, we propose an effective signal-to-noise ratio (eSNR)-adjusted channel decorrelation preprocessing (ACDP) method, which leverages whitening transformation and convex optimization, mitigating the impact of row correlation without prior knowledge of correlation indices. By integrating eSNR-ACDP with the low-complexity standard AMP-IDA, we design the ACDP-AMP-IDA, which attains BER close to the BO benchmark with significantly reduced complexity. Compared to orthogonal AMP (OAMP) algorithms, ACDP-AMP-IDA outperforms standard OAMP by up to 8 dB and achieves performance comparable to OAMP with linear minimum mean square error (MMSE) while incurring only 3%–6% of its runtime. Additionally, it surpasses existing AMP-IDA-based and MMSE detectors by over 10 dB and guarantees robust convergence across various transmitter-receiver distances in uplink THz MIMO systems.

The advancement of nanotechnology has enabled the deployment of medical nanonetworks within the human body, further accelerated by progress in terahertz communication technologies and nanonetwork routing protocols. However, nanonodes may move in dynamic environments due to environmental influences or self-propulsion mechanisms, posing significant challenges to routing protocol design. To address this, we propose a dynamic routing protocol for nanonetworks that integrates real-time velocity vectors to account for time-varying node positions. During relay node selection, key factors such as candidate nodes' velocity vectors are comprehensively evaluated to determine the optimal relay for next-hop transmission. To ensure efficient data exchange among multiple nodes, we design a time-division multiple access (TDMA)-based media access control (MAC) protocol to prevent packet collisions and losses. The protocol assigns distinct transmission and reception time slots to different node types and implements a countdown mechanism to manage channel access and eliminate conflicts. Numerical and simulation results demonstrate that the proposed protocol significantly outperforms benchmark protocols, achieving notable improvements in both time and energy efficiency.

This work studies near-field secure communications through transmit beamfocusing. We examine the benefit of having a protected eavesdropper-free zone around the legitimate receiver, and we determine the worst-case secrecy performance against a potential eavesdropper located anywhere outside the protected zone. A max-min optimization problem is formulated for the beamfocusing design with and without artificial noise transmission. Despite the NP-hardness of the problem, we develop a synchronous gradient descent-ascent framework that approximates the global maximin solution. A low-complexity solution is also derived that delivers excellent performance over a wide range of operating conditions. We further extend this study to a scenario where it is not possible to physically enforce a protected zone. To this end, we consider secure communications through the creation of a virtual protected zone using a full-duplex legitimate receiver. Numerical results demonstrate that exploiting either the physical or virtual receiver-centered protected zone with appropriately designed beamfocusing is an effective strategy for achieving secure near-field communications.

We devise a cutting-edge near-field terahertz (THz) covert communication strategy with noise uncertainty where the beam is focused at a specific location, defined by both distance and direction. Leveraging unique near-field properties, the strategy combats eavesdroppers by increasing the capacity gap between legitimate and eavesdropping channels. We first develop a novel performance analytical framework for the near-field THz covert communication system, based on which we derive closed-form expressions for key performance metrics and thresholds, including the average covert probability, covert outage probability, covert rate, optimal detection threshold, and received power threshold of the eavesdropper. To further improve the secrecy performance, we design a new true-time-delay (TTD)-based piecewise approximation hybrid beamforming scheme for maximizing the covert rate, while effectively mitigating the negative impact caused by the beam split effect. Our numerical results demonstrate that the near-field THz covert communication strategy effectively combats eavesdroppers at all distances in the sector covering the main beam, demonstrating its practical significance for future wireless networks.

We propose a novel framework to analyze the coverage performance of three-dimensional (3D) indoor terahertz (THz) communication systems and examine the impact of the location of a user equipment (UE) on such performance. Specifically, we employ Manhattan line processes to precisely characterize the deployment of wall blockages in the indoor environment. Moreover, we model locations of access points (APs) using a Poisson point process and adopt the nearest line-of-sight AP association strategy. Due to the high penetration loss caused by wall blockages, we consider that a UE, its associated AP, and interfering APs are all in the same rectangular area, i.e., a room. Based on the proposed rectangular area model, we first analyze the impact of the location of a UE on the distance to its associated AP. We then derive a new expression for the coverage probability by adopting the fluctuating two-ray distribution to accurately model the small-scale fading in THz communications. Supported by simulation results, we validate our analysis and demonstrate how the location of the UE affects its coverage probability, offering valuable insights for meeting the coverage requirements of future THz communication system deployments.

In this paper, we develop a tractable analytical framework for a three-dimensional (3D) indoor terahertz (THz) communication system to theoretically assess the impact of the pointing error on its coverage performance. Specifically, we model the locations of access points (APs) using a Poisson point process, human blockages as random cylinder processes, and wall blockages through a Boolean straight line process. A pointing error refers to beamforming gain and direction mismatch between the transmitter and receiver. We characterize it based on the inaccuracy of location estimate. We then analyze the impact of this pointing error on the received signal power and derive a tractable expression for the coverage probability, incorporating the multi-cluster fluctuating two-ray distribution to accurately model small-scale fading in THz communications. Aided by simulation results, we corroborate our analysis and demonstrate that the pointing error has a pronounced impact on the coverage probability. Specifically, we find that merely increasing the antenna array size is insufficient to improve the coverage probability and mitigate the detrimental impact of the pointing error, highlighting the necessity of advanced estimation techniques in THz communication systems.

This work studies near-field secure communications empowered by beamfocusing and demonstrates, for the first time, the benefit of having a protected eavesdropper-free zone around the legitimate receiver. We consider the worst-case secrecy performance against an eavesdropper potentially located anywhere outside the protected zone. Under this consideration, a max-min optimization problem for beamfocusing design is formulated, which can be interpreted as a two-player sequential game between the transmitter and eavesdropper. Despite the NPhardness of the problem, we propose a synchronous gradient descent ascent framework that approximates the global maximin solution. Moreover, we present a low-complexity heuristic beamfocusing solution that delivers excellent performance over a wide range of scenarios. Numerical results demonstrate that exploiting the receiver-centered protected zone with appropriately designed beamfocusing is an effective strategy for achieving near-field secure communications.

We present comprehensive analysis of the communication and sensing performance of a terahertz (THz) integrated sensing and communication system. Notably, we adopt the multi-cluster fluctuating two-ray (MFTR) model to characterize the small-scale fading of THz transmission with high generality. We derive closed-form expressions for the probability density functions (PDFs) of the communication and sensing signal-to-noise ratios and signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratios, covering both uplink and downlink scenarios under communication-centric and sensing-centric configurations. Based on the PDFs, we further derive the outage probabilities and detection probabilities to evaluate the communication and sensing performance, respectively. Using simulations, we verify the accuracy of our analysis and reveal key insights into the impacts of system parameters, such as fading severity and transmit power, on the system performance.

This paper analyzes the performance of Alamouti coded short-packet non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) systems with hybrid multicast-unicast transmission over Nakagami-mfading, where only the statistical channel state information is available at the transmitter, and the multicast and unicast signals are intended for all users and a particular user, respectively. Due to practical limitations, channel estimation errors (CEEs), residual hardware impairments (RHIs), and imperfect successive interference cancellation (SIC) are considered. We first derive approximate closed-form expressions for the average block error rate (BLER) and the corresponding asymptotic expressions at all users. Using such expressions, we analyze the diversity performance including conventional diversity order and finite signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) diversity order. After this, we quantify the relationship among the blocklength of information transmission, power allocation, and pilot sequence length under users’ reliability constraints. Finally, numerical and simulation results show that CEEs, RHIs, and imperfect SIC greatly affect the transmission blocklength. Moreover, RHIs lead to the error floor at high SNRs and finite-SNR diversity order is an effective performance metric at low or medium SNRs. They also show that there exist optimal values for the power allocation coefficients, blocklength of information transmission, and pilot sequence length that minimize the transmission blocklength in the considered hybrid multicast-unicast system. They further show that the NOMA scheme is superior to the orthogonal multiple access counterpart by achieving low-latency transmission.

This paper establishes a molecule harvesting transmitter (TX) model in molecular communication (MC). In particular, we consider that molecules are encapsulated in vesicles generated within the TX and released from the TX through membrane fusion process. We also consider that the TX membrane is covered by heterogeneous receptors of varying sizes and at arbitrary locations, where the receptors can absorb the released molecules once the molecules hitting any of the receptor. Assuming that the vesicle generation follows a jump process, with each vesicle generated at distinct time instants, and assuming a transparent receiver (RX), we calculate the molecule release rate, the expected fraction of absorbed molecules at the TX, and the received signal at the RX. All obtained analytical expressions are functions of all receptors’ locations and sizes, and are validated by particle-based simulations. Our numerical results indicate that evenly distributed receptors on the TX membrane absorb more molecules than randomly distributed receptors or a single receptor. Furthermore, inspired by the biological phenomenon that cells can regulate their release of new molecules by interacting with the molecules that are already present in the environment, we incorporate a negative feedback mechanism (NFM) at the TX. This mechanism utilizes the number of molecules absorbed by the TX as a criterion to determine if the TX should stop releasing additional molecules. We then derive the closed-form expression for the expected fraction of recyclable molecules for a single emission. Here, the pool of recyclable molecules comprises both the molecules that remain unreleased by the TX due to NFM and those that are absorbed back by the TX. Our numerical results demonstrate that incorporating NFM can reduce inter-symbol interference (ISI) while maintaining the same peak received signal as without NFM. Additionally, our results show that TXs incorporating both molecule harvesting and NFM can achieve a higher energy efficiency and lower error probability than TXs employing only molecule harvesting or neither functionality.

In this work, we propose an adaptive system design for an Internet of Things (IoT) monitoring network with latency and reliability requirements, where IoT devices generate time-critical and event-triggered bursty traffic, and an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) aggregates and relays sensed data to the base station. Existing transmission schemes based on the overall average traffic rates over-utilize network resources when traffic is smooth, and suffer from packet collisions when traffic is bursty which occurs in an event of interest. We address such problems by designing an adaptive transmission scheme employing multiuser shared access (MUSA) based grant-free non-orthogonal multiple access and use short packet communication for low latency of the IoT-to-UAV communication. Specifically, to accommodate bursty traffic, we design an analytical framework and formulate an optimization problem to maximize the performance by determining the optimal number of transmission time slots, subject to the stringent reliability and latency constraints. We compare the performance of the proposed scheme with a non-adaptive power-diversity based scheme with a fixed number of time slots. Our results show that the proposed scheme has superior reliability and stability in comparison to the state-of-the-art scheme at moderate to high average traffic rates, while satisfying the stringent latency requirements.

In this work, we study the time-frequency (TF) localization characteristics of the prototype pulse of orthogonal delay-Doppler (DD) division multiplexing modulation, namely, the DD plane orthogonal pulse (DDOP). The TF localization characteristics examine how concentrated or spread out the energy of a pulse is in the joint TF domain, the time domain (TD), and the frequency domain (FD). We first derive the TF localization metrics of the DDOP, including its TF area, its time and frequency dispersions, and its direction parameter. Based on these results, we demonstrate that the DDOP exhibits a high energy spread in the TD, FD, and the joint TF domain, while adhering to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Thereafter, we discuss the potential advantages brought by the energy spread of the DDOP, especially with regard to harnessing both time and frequency diversities and enabling fine-resolution sensing. Subsequently, we examine the relationships between the time and frequency dispersions of the DDOP and those of the envelope functions of DDOP’s TD and FD representations, paving the way for simplified determination of the TF localization metrics for more generalized variants of the DDOP and the pulses used in other DD domain modulation schemes. Finally, using numerical results, we validate our analysis and find further insights.

In this paper, we develop a novel analytical framework for a three-dimensional (3D) indoor terahertz (THz) communication system. Our proposed model incorporates more accurate modeling of wall blockages via Manhattan line processes and precise modeling of THz fading channels via a multi-cluster fluctuating two-ray (MFTR) channel model. We also account for traditional unique features of THz, such as molecular absorption loss, user blockages, and 3D directional antenna beams. Moreover, we model locations of access points (APs) using a Poisson point process and adopt the nearest line-of-sight AP association strategy. Due to the high penetration loss caused by wall blockages, we consider that a user equipment (UE) and its associated AP and interfering APs are all in the same rectangular area, i.e., a room. Based on the proposed rectangular area model, we evaluate the impact of the UE’s location on the distance to its associated AP. We then develop a tractable method to derive a new expression for the coverage probability by examining the interference from interfering APs and considering the MFTR fading experienced by THz communications. Aided by simulation results, we validate our analysis and demonstrate that the UE’s location has a pronounced impact on its coverage probability. Additionally, we find that the optimal AP density is determined by both the UE’s location and the room size, which provides valuable insights for meeting the coverage requirements of future THz communication system deployment.

The beam split effect (BSE) can result in a serious loss in achievable rate in terahertz (THz) transmission. In this work, we propose a new sub-band assignment scheme in a multiuser THz communications system to address the BSE. We consider a base station employs true-time-delay hardware between radio frequency chains and uniform planar arrays (UPAs). The core idea of this hardware is that, rather than fine-tuning the UPA delays to form a single beam from each UPA, we facilitate multi-beam transmission from each UPA. We derive a novel expression for the maximum sub-band bandwidth for UPA, ensuring that the BSE is avoided within each beam. Based on this expression we design sub-band assignment across users and power allocation among sub-bands to maximize the sum-rate, relying on the principles of beam multiplexing and aggregation (BMA). Using numerical results, we demonstrate (i) the merits of our proposed sub-band assignment in contrast to the distance-aware sub-band assignment scheme, (ii) the effectiveness of BMA in comparison with the BSE, and (iii) the improved performance resulting from our proposed optimal power allocation relative to equal power allocation.

The orthogonal delay-Doppler (DD) division multiplexing (ODDM) modulation has recently been proposed as a cutting-edge and promising paradigm to ensure reliable communications in high mobility scenarios. In this work, we investigate the time-frequency (TF) localization characteristics of the DD plane orthogonal pulse (DDOP), which is the prototype pulse of ODDM modulation. The TF localization characteristics reveal the concentration or spread of pulse energy in the joint TF domain. We first derive the TF localization metric, TF area (TFA), for the DDOP. Based on this result, we provide insights into the energy spread of the DDOP in the joint TF domain. Then, we explore the potential advantages conferred by the energy spread of the DDOP, particularly in harnessing time and frequency diversities, as well as enabling high-resolution sensing. Furthermore, we determine the TFA for the recently proposed generalized design of the DDOP. Finally, we validate our analysis through numerical results and show that the energy spread of the generalized design of the DDOP in the joint TF domain exhibits a step-wise increase as the duration of sub-pulses increases.

This paper presents a secrecy performance study of a wiretap communication system with finite blocklength (FBL) transmissions over Rayleigh fading channels, based on the definition of an average information leakage (AIL) metric. We evaluate the exact and closed-form approximate AIL performance, assuming that only statistical channel state information (CSI) of the eavesdropping link is available. Then, we reveal an inherent statistical relationship between the AIL metric in the FBL regime and the commonly-used secrecy outage probability in conventional infinite blocklength communications. Aiming to improve the secure communication performance of the considered system, we formulate a blocklength optimization problem and solve it via a low-complexity approach. Next, we present numerical results to verify our analytical findings and provide various important insights into the impacts of system parameters on the AIL. Specifically, our results indicate that i) compromising a small amount of AIL can lead to significant reliability improvements, and ii) the AIL experiences a secrecy floor in the high signal-to-noise ratio regime.

Short-packet communication (SPC) and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are anticipated to play crucial roles in the development of 5G-and-beyond wireless networks and the Internet of Things (IoT). In this paper, we propose a secure SPC system, where a UAV serves as a mobile decode-and-forward (DF) relay, periodically receiving and relaying small data packets from a remote IoT device to its receiver in two hops with strict latency requirements, in the presence of an eavesdropper. This system requires careful optimization of important design parameters, such as the coding blocklengths of both hops, transmit powers, and the UAV’s trajectory. While the overall optimization problem is nonconvex, we tackle it by applying a block successive convex approximation (BSCA) approach to divide the original problem into three subproblems and solve them separately. Then, an overall iterative algorithm is proposed to obtain the final design with guaranteed convergence. Our proposed low-complexity algorithm incorporates robust trajectory design and resource management to optimize the effective average secrecy throughput of the communication system over the course of the UAV-relay’s mission. Simulation results demonstrate significant performance improvements compared to various benchmark schemes and provide useful design insights on the coding blocklengths and transmit powers along the trajectory of the UAV.

Physical-layer security (PLS) is a promising technique to complement more traditional means of communication security in beyond-5G wireless networks. However, studies of PLS are often based on ideal assumptions such as infinite coding blocklengths or perfect knowledge of the wiretap link’s channel state information (CSI). In this work, we study the performance of finite blocklength (FBL) transmissions using a new secrecy metric — the average information leakage (AIL). We evaluate the exact and approximate AIL with Gaussian signaling and arbitrary fading channels, assuming that the eavesdropper’s instantaneous CSI is unknown. We then conduct case studies that use artificial noise (AN) beamforming to analyze the AIL in both Rayleigh and Rician fading channels. The accuracy of the analytical expressions is verified through extensive simulations, and various insights regarding the impact of key system parameters on the AIL are obtained. Particularly, our results reveal that allowing a small level of AIL can potentially lead to significant reliability enhancements. To improve the system performance, we formulate and solve an average secrecy throughput (AST) optimization problem via both non-adaptive and adaptive design strategies. Our findings highlight the significance of blocklength design and AN power allocation, as well as the impact of their trade-off on the AST.

In this paper, we propose a secure short-packet communication (SPC) system involving an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-aided relay in the presence of a terrestrial passive eavesdropper. The considered system, which is applicable to various next-generation Internet-of-Things (IoT) networks, exploits a UAV as a mobile relay, facilitating the reliable and secure exchange of intermittent short packets between a pair of remote IoT devices with strict latency. Our objective is to improve the overall secrecy throughput performance of the system by carefully designing key parameters such as the coding blocklengths and the UAV trajectory. However, this inherently poses a challenging optimization problem that is difficult to solve optimally. To address the issue, we propose a low-complexity algorithm inspired by the block successive convex approximation approach, where we divide the original problem into two subproblems and solve them alternately until convergence. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed design achieves significant performance improvements relative to other benchmarks, and offer valuable insights into determining appropriate coding blocklengths and UAV trajectory.

We study the age of information (AoI) performance of a multiuser downlink system where a base station generates and transmits status updates to multiple user equipments (UEs). The question of whether to adopt broadcast transmission or distributed transmission for the optimal AoI performance is addressed analytically. In the broadcast transmission scheme, the status update for all UEs is jointly encoded into a packet for transmission, while in the distributed transmission scheme, the status update for each UE is encoded individually and transmitted by following the round robin policy. We first derive new closed-form expressions for the average AoI achieved by two transmission schemes. Then, we provide a criterion for selecting the better transmission scheme for a remote control system. Aided by simulation results, we investigate the impact of system parameters on the average AoI. For example, the distributed transmission scheme is more appropriate for the system with a large number UEs; otherwise, the broadcast transmission scheme is more appropriate.

In this paper, we analyze the non-linear age of information (AoI) performance in a point-to-point short packet communication system, where a transmitter generates packets based on status updates and transmits the packets to a receiver. Specifically, we investigate three packet management strategies, namely, the non-preemption with no buffer strategy, the non-preemption with one buffer strategy, and the preemption strategy. To characterize the level of the receiver's dissatisfaction on outdated data, we adopt a generalized$\alpha-\beta$AoI penalty function into the analysis and derive closed-form expressions for the average AoI penalty achieved by the three packet management strategies. Simulation results are used to corroborate our analysis and explicitly evaluate the impact of various system parameters, such as the coding rate and status update generation rate, on the AoI performance. Additionally, we find that the value of$\alpha$reflects the system transmission reliability.

We analytically decide whether the broadcast transmission scheme or the unicast transmission scheme achieves the optimal age of information (AoI) performance of a multiuser system where a base station (BS) generates and transmits status updates to multiple user equipments (UEs). In the broadcast transmission scheme, the status update for all UEs is jointly encoded into a packet for transmission, while in the unicast transmission scheme, the status update for each UE is encoded individually and transmitted by following the round robin policy. For both transmission schemes, we examine three packet management strategies, namely the non-preemption strategy, the preemption in buffer strategy, and the preemption in serving strategy. We first derive new closed-form expressions for the average AoI achieved by two transmission schemes with three packet management strategies. Based on them, we compare the AoI performance of two transmission schemes in two systems, namely, the remote control system and the dynamic system. Aided by simulation results, we verify our analysis and investigate the impact of system parameters on the average AoI. For example, the unicast transmission scheme is more appropriate for the system with a large number of UEs. Otherwise, the broadcast transmission scheme is more appropriate.

Terahertz (THz) communications are regarded as a pillar technology for the 6G systems, by offering multi-ten-GHz bandwidth. To overcome the huge propagation loss, THz ultra-massive MIMO systems with hybrid beamforming are proposed to offer high array gain. Notably, the adjustable phase shifters considered in most existing hybrid beamforming studies are power-hungry and difficult to realize in the THz band. Moreover, due to the ultra-massive antennas, full channel-state-information (CSI) is challenging to obtain. To address these practical concerns, in this paper, an energy-efficient dynamic-subarray with fixed phase shifters (DS-FPS) architecture is proposed for THz hybrid beamforming. To compensate for the spectral efficiency loss caused by the fixed phase of FPS, a switch network is inserted to enable dynamic connections. In addition, by considering the partial CSI, we propose a row-successive-decomposition (RSD) algorithm to design the hybrid beamforming matrices for DS-FPS. A row-by-row (RBR) algorithm is further proposed to reduce the computational complexity. Extensive simulation results show that, the proposed DS-FPS architecture with the RSD and RBR algorithms achieves much higher energy efficiency than the existing architectures. Moreover, the spectral efficiency of the DS-FPS architecture with the proposed algorithms is robust to the CSI error.

We propose a new spectrum allocation strategy, aided by unsupervised learning, for multiuser terahertz communication systems. In this strategy, adaptive sub-band bandwidth is considered such that the spectrum of interest can be divided into sub-bands with unequal bandwidths. This strategy reduces the variation in molecular absorption loss among the users, leading to the improved data rate performance. We first formulate an optimization problem to determine the optimal sub-band bandwidth and transmit power, and then propose the unsupervised learning-based approach to obtaining the near-optimal solution to this problem. In the proposed approach, we first train a deep neural network (DNN) while utilizing a loss function that is inspired by the Lagrangian of the formulated problem. Then using the trained DNN, we approximate the near-optimal solutions. Numerical results demonstrate that comparing to existing approaches, our proposed unsupervised learning-based approach achieves a higher data rate, especially when the molecular absorption coefficient within the spectrum of interest varies in a highly non-linear manner.

This paper analyzes the channel impulse response of an absorbing receiver (RX) covered by multiple non-overlapping heterogeneous receptors with different sizes and arbitrary locations in a molecular communication system. In this system, a point transmitter (TX) is assumed to be uniformly located on a virtual sphere at a fixed distance from the RX. Considering molecule degradation during the propagation from the TX to the RX, the expected molecule hitting rate at the RX over varying locations of the TX is analyzed as a function of the size and location of each receptor. Notably, this analytical result is applicable for different numbers, sizes, and locations of receptors, and its accuracy is demonstrated via particle-based simulations. Numerical results show that (i) the expected number of absorbed molecules at the RX increases with an increasing number of receptors, when the total area of receptors on the RX surface is fixed, and (ii) evenly distributed receptors lead to the largest expected number of absorbed molecules.

We propose a new spectrum allocation strategy for terahertz (THz) band communication (THzCom) systems. Specifically, we design multi-band-based spectrum allocation with adaptive sub-band bandwidth (ASB), by allowing to divide the spectrum of interest into sub-bands with unequal bandwidths. Due to the frequency and distance-dependent nature of the molecular absorption loss, the variation in this loss between the sub-bands would be very high at the THz band when equal sub-band bandwidth (ESB) is considered, as in the literature. The proposed strategy reduces this variation by allowing changes in the sub-band bandwidth, which leads to an overall improvement in the data rate performance. To study the impact of our strategy, we formulate an optimization problem, with the main focus on spectrum allocation, to determine the optimal sub-band bandwidth and transmit power. Thereafter, we propose reasonable approximations and transformations to solve the formulated problem. Aided by numerical results, we show that by enabling and optimizing ASB, a significantly higher data rate can be achieved by our strategy, compared to adopting ESB, and it is more beneficial to adopt ASB when the spectrum with the highest average molecular absorption loss within the THz transmission window is selected during spectrum allocation.

In this paper, we analyze the impact of different encoding schemes on the age of information (AoI) performance in a point-to-point system, where a source generates packets based on the status updates collected from multiple sensors and transmits the packets to a destination. In this system, we consider two encoding schemes, namely, the joint encoding scheme and the distributed encoding scheme. In the joint encoding scheme, the status updates from all the sensors are jointly encoded into a packet for transmission. In the distributed encoding scheme, the status update from each sensor is encoded individually and the sensors’ packets are transmitted following the round robin policy. To ensure the freshness of packets, the zero-wait policy is adopted in both schemes, where a new packet is immediately generated once the source finishes the transmission of the current packet. We derive closed-form expressions for the average AoI achieved by these two encoding schemes and compare their performances. Simulation results show that the distributed encoding scheme is more appropriate for systems with a relatively large number of sensors, compared with the joint encoding scheme.

This paper proposes a novel imperfect transmitter (TX) model, namely the membrane fusion (MF)-based TX, that adopts MF between a vesicle and the TX membrane to release molecules encapsulated within the vesicle. For the MF-based TX, the molecule release probability and the fraction of molecules released from the TX membrane are derived. Incorporating molecular degradation and a fully-absorbing receiver (RX), the channel impulse response (CIR) is derived for two scenarios: 1) Both TX and RX are static, and 2) both TX and RX are diffusion-based mobile. Moreover, a sequence of bits transmitted from the TX to the RX is considered. The average bit error rate (BER) is obtained for both scenarios, wherein the probability mass function (PMF) of the number of molecules absorbed in the mobile scenario is derived. Furthermore, a simulation framework is proposed for the MF-based TX, based on which the derived analytical expressions are validated. Simulation results show that a low MF probability or low vesicle mobility slows the release of molecules and reduces the molecule hitting probability at the RX. Simulation results also indicate the difference between the MF-based TX and an ideal point TX in terms of the inter-symbol interference (ISI).

We propose to use channel inversion power control (CIPC) to achieve one-way ultra-reliable and lowlatency communications (URLLC), where only the transmission in one direction requires ultra reliability and low latency. Based on channel reciprocity, our proposed CIPC schemes guarantee the power of received signal that is used to decode the information to be a constant value$Q$, by varying the transmit signal and power, which relaxes the assumption of knowing channel state information (CSI) at the user. Thus, the CIPC schemes eliminate the overhead of CSI feedback, reduce communication latency, and explore the benefits of multiple antennas to significantly improve transmission reliability. We derive analytical expressions for the packet loss probability of the proposed CIPC schemes, based on which we determine a closed interval and a convex set for optimizing$Q$in CIPC with imperfect and perfect channel reciprocity, respectively. Our results show that CIPC is an effective means to achieve one-way URLLC. The tradeoff among reliability, latency, and required resources (e.g., transmit antennas) is further revealed, which provides novel principles for designing one-way URLLC systems.

We study spectrum allocation for terahertz (THz) band communication (THzCom) systems, while considering the frequency and distance-dependent nature of THz channels. Different from existing studies, we explore multi-band-based spectrum allocation with adaptive sub-band bandwidth (ASB) by allowing the spectrum of interest to be divided into sub-bands with unequal bandwidths. Also, we investigate the impact of sub-band assignment on multi-connectivity (MC) enabled THzCom systems, where users associate and communicate with multiple access points simultaneously. We formulate resource allocation problems, with the primary focus on spectrum allocation, to determine sub-band assignment, sub-band bandwidth, and optimal transmit power. Thereafter, we propose reasonable approximations and transformations, and develop iterative algorithms based on the successive convex approximation technique to analytically solve the formulated problems. Aided by numerical results, we show that by enabling and optimizing ASB, significantly higher throughput can be achieved as compared to adopting equal sub-band bandwidth, and this throughput gain is most profound when the power budget constraint is more stringent. We also show that our sub-band assignment strategy in MC-enabled THzCom systems outperforms the state-of-the-art sub-band assignment strategies and the performance gain is most profound when the spectrum with the lowest average molecular absorption coefficient is selected during spectrum allocation.

We propose a cluster-based multi-carrier beam division multiple access (MC-BDMA) scheme to enable massive device terahertz (THz) communications with the dynamic-subarray hybrid beamforming (HBF) architecture. This scheme is motivated by a limitation of conventional HBF architectures, i.e., the number of users cannot exceed the number of radio frequency (RF) chains. By exploiting the unique properties of THz channels, such as high distance-and-frequency dependence, high sparsity, and small angular spread, we propose multiple users in the same cluster to be supported by a single RF chain with distance-aware multi-carrier modulation. Moreover, we propose different clusters to be divided by BDMA that is accomplished through HBF design. In our proposed scheme, we first design a novel antenna selection and subarray partition algorithm for the dynamic-subarray HBF architecture to compensate for performance loss caused by diverse channels among users. We then design an algorithm for multi-carrier HBF which maximizes the achievable throughput and eliminates the inter-beam interference. Numerical results show that our proposed cluster-based MC-BDMA scheme with the dynamic-subarray HBF architecture provides an almost 100% spectral efficiency gain and a 60% energy efficiency gain over the conventional non-cluster HBF scheme in massive device communications.

Physical layer security (PLS) is promising for secure short-packet transmissions in ultra-reliable and low-latency communications. The bottlenecks of applying PLS in practice include 1) lack of accurate channel state information (CSI) of both the intended user and the eavesdropper; 2) high computational complexity for solving optimization problems. To address the first issue, we compare the secure transmission rates of short packets in different scenarios (i.e., with/without eavesdropper’s instantaneous CSI and with/without channel estimation errors) and derive the closed-form optimal power control policy in a special case. To find numerical solutions in general cases, we apply an unsupervised deep learning method, which has low complexity after the training stage. Through numerical results, we obtain the following three key findings: 1) The learning-based power control policy approaches the closed-form optimal policy in the special case and outperforms two existing power control policies in general cases. 2) Knowing the instantaneous CSI of the eavesdropper only provides a marginal gain of the secure data rate in the high signal-to-noise ratio regime. 3) In the presence of channel estimation errors, the learning-based policy trained by the estimated channels can guarantee the average transmit power constraint, while the closed-form policy cannot.

In this paper, we analyze the age of information (AoI) performance of a multi-user mobile edge computing (MEC) system where a base station (BS) generates and transmits computation-intensive packets to user equipments (UEs). In this MEC system, we consider two computing schemes, namely, the local computing scheme and the edge computing scheme. In the local computing scheme, each packet is transmitted to the UE and then computed by the local server at the UE. In the edge computing scheme, each packet is computed by the edge server at the BS and then transmitted to the UE. Considering exponentially distributed transmission time and computation time and adopting the first come first serve queuing policy, we derive the closed-form expressions for the average AoI of these two computing schemes. Simulation results corroborate our analysis and examine the impact of system parameters on the average AoI.

This paper proposes a novel imperfect spherical transmitter (TX) model, namely the membrane fusion (MF)-based TX, that adopts MF between a vesicle and the TX membrane to release molecules encapsulated within the vesicle. For the MF-based TX, the molecule release probability and the fraction of molecules released from the TX membrane are derived. Incorporating molecular degradation and a fully-absorbing receiver (RX), the end-to-end molecule hitting probability at the RX is also derived. A simulation framework for the MF-based TX is proposed, where the released point on the TX membrane and the released time of each molecule are determined. Aided by the simulation framework, the derived analytical expressions are validated. Simulation results verify that a low MF probability or low vesicle mobility slows the release of molecules from the TX, extends time required to reach the peak release probability, and reduces the end-to-end molecule hitting probability at the RX.

In this article, we propose a two-tier communication strategy to facilitate data collection in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-enabled massive Internet of Things (IoT) systems through introducing ground access points (APs) to serve between the UAV and IoT devices. In the first tier of our proposed strategy, all IoT devices transmit their packets to their local APs via a multi-channel ALOHA-based random access scheme, while in the second tier, APs deliver their aggregated data to the UAV through coordinated time division multiple access. Thus, our introduced APs not only liberate the UAV from the potential massive IoT congestion but also facilitate the design of UAV's trajectory based on the location of APs. To examine the performance of our strategy, we propose a tractable framework to analyze the average system throughput. We reveal that the average two-tier throughput of each AP monotonically increases with its maximum achievable throughput in the second tier, while the increasing slope becomes steeper with a higher traffic load mean in the first tier. Then, we formulate the joint design of UAV's trajectory and resource allocation as a non-convex optimization problem to maximize the average system throughput while considering the heterogeneous quality of service requirement of each AP. To solve this problem, a low-complexity iterative algorithm is devised based on successive convex approximation. Numerical results demonstrate the substantial average system throughput gain achieved by our proposed strategy and design in the context of massive access, compared to the baseline schemes in the literature.

In this paper, we investigate optimal downlink power allocation in massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) networks with distributed antenna arrays (DAAs) under correlated and uncorrelated channel fading. In DAA massive MIMO, a base station (BS) consists of multiple antenna sub-arrays. Notably, the antenna sub-arrays are deployed in arbitrary locations within a DAA massive MIMO cell. Consequently, the distance-dependent large-scale propagation coefficients are different from a user to these different antenna sub-arrays, which makes power control a challenging problem. We assume that the network operates in time-division duplex mode, where each BS obtains the channel estimates via uplink pilots. Based on the channel estimates, the BSs perform maximum-ratio transmission in the downlink. We then derive a closed-form signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) expression, where the channels are subject to correlated fading. Based on the SINR expression, we propose a network-wide max-min power control algorithm to ensure that each user in the network receives a uniform quality of service. Numerical results demonstrate the performance advantages offered by DAA massive MIMO. For some specific scenarios, DAA massive MIMO can improve the average per-user throughput up to 55%. Furthermore, we demonstrate that channel fading covariance is an important factor in determining the performance of DAA massive MIMO.

In quorum sensing (QS), bacteria exchange molecular signals to work together. An analytically-tractable model is presented for characterizing QS signal propagation within a population of bacteria and the number of responsive cooperative bacteria (i.e., cooperators) in a two-dimensional (2D) environment. Unlike prior works with a deterministic topology and a simplified molecular propagation channel, this work considers continuous emission, diffusion, degradation, and reception among randomly-distributed bacteria. Using stochastic geometry, the 2D channel response and the corresponding probability of cooperation at a bacterium are derived. Based on this probability, new expressions are derived for the moment generating function and different orders of moments of the number of cooperators. The analytical results agree with the simulation results obtained by a particle-based method. In addition, the Poisson and Gaussian distributions are compared to approximate the distribution of the number of cooperators and the Poisson distribution provides the best overall approximation. The derived channel response can be generally applied to any molecular communication model where single or multiple transmitters continuously release molecules into a 2D environment. The derived statistics of the number of cooperators can be used to predict and control the QS process, e.g., predicting and decreasing the likelihood of biofilm formation.

In this paper, we investigate a mobile edge computing (MEC) network with two computational access points (CAPs), where the source is equipped with multiple antennas and it has some computational tasks to be accomplished by the CAPs through Nakagami-m distributed wireless links. Since the MEC network involves both communication and computation, we first define the outage probability by taking into account the joint impact of latency and energy consumption. From this new definition, we then employ receiver antenna selection (RAS) or maximal ratio combining (MRC) at the receiver, and apply selection combining (SC) or switch-and-stay combining (SSC) protocol to choose a CAP to accomplish the computational task from the source. For both protocols along with the RAS and MRC, we further analyze the network performance by deriving new and easy-to-use analytical expressions for the outage probability over Nakagami-m fading channels, and study the impact of the network parameters on the outage performance. Furthermore, we provide the asymptotic outage probability in the low regime of noise power, from which we obtain some important insights on the system design. Finally, simulations and numerical results are demonstrated to verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach. It is shown that the number of transmit antenna and Nakagami parameter can help reduce the latency and energy consumption effectively, and the SSC protocol can achieve the same performance as the SC protocol with proper switching thresholds of latency and energy consumption.

This paper investigates the estimation of different parameters, e.g., propagation distance and flow velocity, by utilizing two fully-absorbing receivers (RXs) in a one-dimensional (1D) environment. The time-varying number of absorbed molecules at each RX and the number of absorbed molecules in a time interval as time approaches infinity are derived. Noisy molecules in this environment, that are released by sources in addition to the transmitter, are also considered. A novel estimation method, namely difference estimation (DE), is proposed to eliminate the effect of noise by using the difference of received signals at the two RXs. For DE, the Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB) on the variance of estimation is derived. Independent maximum likelihood estimation is also considered at each RX as a benchmark to show the performance advantage of DE. Aided by particle-based simulation, the derived analytical results are verified. Furthermore, numerical results show that DE attains the CRLB and is less sensitive to the change of noise than independent estimation at each RX.

Hybrid beamforming for terahertz (THz) communications is a promising technology for beyond 5G wireless systems, which has great potential to overcome very high propagation loss, mitigate hardware complexity, and achieve unprecedented data rates. In this paper, a dynamic-subarray (DS) architecture is investigated for THz hybrid beamforming systems. Specifically, we analyze both quantized-phase shifters (QPS) with finite phase levels, and fixed-phase shifters (FPS) with unaltered phases in the DS architecture, which significantly reduce hardware complexity and power consumption compared to using the infinite-resolution phase shifters (IPS). Furthermore, a generic low-complexity row-by-row (RBR) algorithm is derived for the proposed DS-structured hybrid beamforming with QPS and FPS. Extensive simulation results demonstrate that the RBR algorithm improves spectral efficiency and substantially reduces computational complexity. Compared to the DS-IPS, the DS-QPS architecture can achieve 98% spectral efficiency and 136% energy efficiency. In addition, we show that while the spectral efficiency of the DS-FPS architecture is 21% lower than the DS-QPS counterpart, the low-cost FPS provides 30% higher energy efficiency than QPS.

The consideration of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) trajectory is of crucial importance in the performance evaluation of cellular-connected UAV networks. In this work, we consider a cellular-connected aerial user equipment (AUE) employed for surveillance and monitoring. The AUE moves along a given trajectory, while periodically transmitting to a terrestrial base station (BS) in the uplink, with a specific quality of service (QoS) requirement. To avoid the underutilization of spectrum resources, we enable simultaneous uplink transmissions of the AUE and a terrestrial user equipment (TUE) using power-domain uplink aerial-terrestrial non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA). We take the trajectory of AUE into consideration and develop an analytical framework to compute the total rate coverage probability, i.e., the probability where both AUE and TUE are decoded, at a given transmission point in the trajectory. In addition, we numerically determine the minimum height of AUE to achieve a certain QoS constraint for different AUE target data rates and built-up areas. Our results show that, for a spiral trajectory, the minimum height increases as the AUE moves from cell center to the boundary, and as the severity of the environmental parameters increases.

We derive new expressions for the connection probability and the average ergodic capacity to evaluate the performance achieved by multi-connectivity (MC) in an indoor ultra-wideband terahertz (THz) communication system. In this system, the user is affected by both self-blockage and dynamic human blockers. We first build up a three-dimensional propagation channel in this system to characterize the impact of molecular absorption loss and the shrinking usable bandwidth nature of the ultra-wideband THz channel. We then carry out new performance analysis for two MC strategies: 1) Closest line-of-sight (LOS) access point (AP) MC (C-MC), and 2) Reactive MC (R-MC). With numerical results, we validate our analysis and show the considerable improvement achieved by both MC strategies in the connection probability. We further show that the C-MC and R-MC strategies provide significant and marginal capacity gain relative to the single connectivity strategy, respectively, and increasing the number of the user's associated APs imposes completely different affects on the capacity gain achieved by the C-MC and R-MC strategies. Additionally, we clarify that our analysis allows us to determine the optimal density of APs in order to maximize the capacity gain.

We propose a novel analytical framework for evaluating the coverage performance of a millimeter wave (mmWave) cellular network where idle user equipments (UEs) act as relays. In this network, the base station (BS) adopts either the direct mode to transmit to the destination UE, or the relay mode if the direct mode fails, where the BS transmits to the relay UE and then the relay UE transmits to the destination UE. To address the drastic rotational movements of destination UEs in practice, we propose to adopt selection combining at destination UEs. New expression is derived for the signal-to-interference-plus noise ratio (SINR) coverage probability of the network. Using numerical results, we first demonstrate the accuracy of our new expression. Then we show that ignoring spatial correlation, which has been commonly adopted in the literature, leads to severe overestimation of the SINR coverage probability. Furthermore, we show that introducing relays into a mmWave cellular network vastly improves the coverage performance. In addition, we show that the optimal BS density maximizing the SINR coverage probability can be determined by using our analysis.

We propose a novel hybrid beamforming (BF) scheme with distance-aware multi-carrier (DAMC) modulation and beam division multiple access (BDMA) to enable massive connections in terahertz (THz) micro-scale networks. This scheme breaks a fundamental limitation in hybrid BF, i.e., the number of users that are simultaneously supported cannot exceed the number of RF chains. Some unique properties of THz channels, such as high distance-and-frequency dependence, high sparsity, and small angular spread, are exploited in this scheme. First, we propose a user grouping scheme with rough beam pre-scanning and a DAMC spectrum allocation scheme to eliminate intragroup interference. Then, we propose a wideband hybrid BF designing algorithm using the principles of BDMA to control inter-group interference. Furthermore, we propose an iterative power allocation strategy to maximize the achievable sum-rate of the network. Simulation results are presented to show that our proposed hybrid BF DAMC-BDMA scheme achieves higher sum-rate than the fully digital BF scheme in the high transmit power regime, due to the high sparsity of THz channels. Simulation results also demonstrate that our iterative power allocation strategy has strong robustness against uncertain interferences.

In this paper, we analyze pilot contamination (PC) attacks on a multi-cell massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) network with correlated pilots. We obtain correlated pilots using a user capacity-achieving pilot sequence design. This design relies on an algorithm which designs correlated pilot sequences based on signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) requirements for all the legitimate users. The pilot design is capable of achieving the SINR requirements for all users even in the presence of PC. However, this design has some intrinsic limitations and vulnerabilities, such as a known pilot sequence and the non-zero cross-correlation among different pilot sequences. We reveal that such vulnerabilities may be exploited by an active attacker to increase PC in the network. Motivated by this, we analyze the correlated pilot design for vulnerabilities that can be exploited by an active attacker. Based on this analysis, we develop an effective active attack strategy in the massive MIMO network with correlated pilot sequences. Our examinations reveal that the user capacity region of the network is significantly reduced in the presence of the active attack. Importantly, the SINR requirements for the worst-affected users may not be satisfied even with an infinite number of antennas at the base station.

This paper considers an emerging cellular-connected unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) architecture for surveillance or monitoring applications. We study a scenario of interest where a cellular-connected aerial user equipment (AUE) periodically transmits in uplink to a base station (BS) with a given data rate requirement, while moving along a given trajectory. For an efficient spectrum usage, we enable the concurrent uplink transmission of the AUE and a terrestrial user equipment (TUE) by employing power-domain aerial-terrestrial non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA), while accounting for the AUE's known trajectory. To characterize the system performance, we develop an analytical framework to compute the rate coverage probability, i.e., the probability that the achievable data rate of both the AUE and TUE exceeds the respective target rates. We use our analytical results to numerically determine the minimum height that the AUE needs to fly, at each transmission point along the given trajectory, in order to satisfy a certain quality of service (QoS) constraint of various AUE target data rates in different built-up environments. Specifically, our results show that the minimum height of the AUE depends on its distance from the BS as the AUE moves along the given trajectory which indicates the importance of modeling AUE trajectory in cellular-connected UAV systems.

We propose novel hybrid beamforming schemes for the terahertz (THz) wireless system where a multi-antenna base station (BS) communicates with a multi-antenna user over frequency selective fading. Here, we assume that the BS employs sub-connected hybrid beamforming and multi-carrier modulation to deliver ultra high data rate. We consider a three-dimensional wideband THz channel by incorporating the joint effect of molecular absorption, high sparsity, and multi-path fading, and consider the carrier frequency offset in multi-carrier systems. With this model, we first propose a two-stage wideband hybrid beamforming scheme which includes a beamsteering codebook searching algorithm for analog beamforming and a regularized channel inversion method for digital beamforming. We then propose a novel wideband hybrid beamforming scheme with two digital beamformers. In this scheme, an additional digital beamformer is developed to compensate for the performance loss caused by the constant-amplitude hardware constraints and the difference of channel matrices among subcarriers. Furthermore, we consider imperfect channel state information (CSI) and propose a probabilistic robust hybrid beamforming scheme to combat channel estimation errors. Numerical results demonstrate the benefits of our proposed schemes for the sake of practical implementation, especially considering its high spectral efficiency, low complexity, and robustness against imperfect CSI.

The exchange of small molecular signals within microbial populations is generally referred to as quorum sensing (QS). QS is ubiquitous in nature and enables microorganisms to respond to fluctuations in living environments by working together. In this study, a QS- based molecular communication system within a microbial population in a two-dimensional (2D) environment is analytically modeled. Microorganisms are randomly distributed on a 2D circle where each one releases molecules at random times. The number of molecules observed at each randomly-distributed bacterium is first derived by characterizing the diffusion and degradation of molecules within the population. Using the derived result and some approximation, the expected density of cooperative bacteria is derived. Our model captures the basic features of QS. The analytical results for noisy signal propagation agree with simulation results where the Brownian motion of molecules is simulated by a particle- based method. Therefore, we anticipate that our model can be used to predict the density of cooperators in a variety of QS-coordinated activities, e.g., biofilm formation and antibiotic resistance.

We develop a new framework to analyze the average block error rate (BLER) of using short-packet communications in a non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) system. In this system, the N-antenna base station (BS) designs its transmission weight as per the instantaneous channel knowledge from the BS to either the near user or the far user. Incorporating the unique relationship of the finite blocklength and the achievable rate from the BS to two users, we derive new closed-form expressions for the average BLER for arbitrary signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs). We also derive simple expressions for the asymptotic average BLER at high SNRs, based on which we determine the optimal power allocation and minimum blocklength for satisfying the average BLER targets at two users. We demonstrate that the user, whose channel knowledge is used for weight design, achieves a lower BLER than the other. We further show that NOMA leads to a lower latency than orthogonal multiple access given the same average BLER targets. Notably, this latency advantage is more profound when the average BLER target ratio between the near user and the far user increases.

In this paper, symbol-by-symbol maximum likelihood (ML) detection is proposed for a cooperative diffusion-based molecular communication (MC) system. In this system, the transmitter (TX) sends a common information symbol to multiple receivers (RXs) and a fusion center (FC) chooses the TX symbol that is more likely, given the likelihood of its observations from all RXs. The transmission of a sequence of binary symbols and the resultant intersymbol interference are considered in the cooperative MC system. Three ML detection variants are proposed according to different RX behaviors and different knowledge at the FC. The system error probabilities for two ML detector variants are derived, one of which is in closed form. The optimal molecule allocation among RXs to minimize the system error probability of one variant is determined by solving a joint optimization problem. Also for this variant, the equal distribution of molecules among two symmetric RXs is analytically shown to achieve the local minimal error probability. Numerical and simulation results show that the ML detection variants provide lower bounds on the error performance of simpler, non-ML cooperative variants and demonstrate that these simpler cooperative variants have error performance comparable to ML detectors.

In this paper, we examine the physical layer security of a cooperative relay network where two source-destination pairs communicate through a decode-and-forward (DF) relay in the presence of multiple eavesdroppers. To safeguard the legitimate communications against eavesdropping, we propose a novel two-stage secure relay selection (TSSRS) with a non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) scheme to maximize the capacity of one source-destination pair, while guaranteeing the successful communication of the other source-destination pair. To explicitly reveal the benefits of our proposed scheme, we derive the exact and asymptotic expressions for its secrecy outage probability. As a benchmark, we also analyze the secrecy performance of the TSSRS strategy with an orthogonal multiple access (OMA) scheme. Both theoretical analysis and simulation results demonstrate that our proposed TSSRS-NOMA scheme significantly outperforms the TSSRS-OMA scheme when the transmit power at the source and relay is in the low and medium regimes. In addition, we show that the advantage of the TSSRS-NOMA scheme over the TSSRS-OMA scheme becomes obvious when the two source-destination pairs have profoundly different secrecy requirements.

In this paper, we study decode-and-forward relaying networks in the presence of direct links, where they are used by the eavesdropper to overhear the confidential message from the source and relay. The secure data transmission can go through from either the direct or the relaying branch, and we focus on the practical communication scenarios, where the main and eavesdropper channels are correlated. Although traditional opportunistic selection techniques can choose one better branch to ensure the secure performance, it needs to continuously know the channel state information (CSI) of both branches and may result in a high branch switching rate. To overcome these limitations, we propose a distributed secure switch-and-stay combining (DSSSC) protocol, where only one between direct and relaying branches is activated to assist the secure data transmission, and the switching occurs when the branch cannot support the secure communication any longer. The DSSSC protocol uses either the instantaneous or the statistics of the eavesdropping CSI. For both cases, we quantify the impact of correlated fading on secure communication by deriving an analytical expression for the secrecy outage probability (SOP) as well as an asymptotic expression for the high main-to-eavesdropper ratio region. From the asymptotic SOP, we can conclude that the DSSSC can achieve the optimal secure performance of opportunistic selection with less implementation complexity, and the channel correlation can further enhance the transmission security.

In this paper, we propose a novel beamforming design to enhance physical layer security of a non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) system with the aid of artificial noise (AN). The proposed design uses two factors to balance the useful signal strength and interference at the strong and weak users, which is a generalized version of the existing beamforming designs in the context of physical layer security for NOMA. We determine the optimal power allocation among useful signals and AN together with the two optimal factors in order to maximize the secrecy sum rate (SSR). Our asymptotic analysis in the high signal-to-noise ratio regime provides an efficient and near-optimal solution to optimize the beamforming scalars and power allocation coefficients. Our analysis indicates that it is not optimal to form a beam toward either the strong user or the weak user in NOMA systems for security enhancement. In addition, the asymptotically optimal power allocation informs that, as the transmit power increases, more power should be allocated to the weak user or AN signals, while the power allocated to the strong user keeps constant. Our examination shows that the proposed novel beamforming design can significantly outperform two benchmark schemes.

We propose a novel hybrid beamforming (BF) scheme for the Terahertz (THz) wireless communication system over frequency selective channels. In the system, a multi-antenna base station which employs the sub-connected architecture adopts orthogonal frequency division multiplexing to serve a multi- antenna user. By building a wideband THz channel model, we design a beamsteering codebook searching algorithm for analog BF in which the channel state information of all subcarriers in the radio frequency domain is considered. We then design the digital BF by using the regularized channel inversion method for eliminating inter-band interference at the baseband. Numerical results demonstrate that our proposed hybrid BF scheme achieves a significant spectral efficiency advantage over the existing hybrid BF scheme which adopted the zero-forcing digital beamformer. The results also demonstrate that the spectral efficiency achieved by our proposed low-complexity scheme is very close to that achieved by the high- complexity fully digital BF scheme, especially when the average received power at the user is low.

In this paper, we investigate downlink power control in massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) networks with distributed antenna arrays. The base station (BS) in each cell consists of multiple antenna arrays, which are deployed in arbitrary locations within the cell. Due to the spatial separation between antenna arrays, the large-scale propagation effect is different from a user to different antenna arrays in a cell, which makes power control a challenging problem as compared to conventional massive MIMO. We assume that the BS in each cell obtains the channel estimates via uplink pilots. Based on the channel estimates, the BSs perform maximum ratio transmission for the downlink. We then derive a closed-form spectral efficiency (SE) expression, where the channels are subject to correlated fading. Utilizing the derived expression, we propose a max-min power control algorithm to ensure that each user in the network receives a uniform quality of service. Numerical results demonstrate that, for the network considered in this work, optimizing for max-min SE through the max-min power control improves the sum SE of the network as compared to equal power allocation.

In this paper, symbol-by-symbol maximum likelihood (ML) detection is proposed for a cooperative diffusion-based molecular communication (MC) system. In this system, a fusion center (FC) chooses the transmitter's symbol that is more likely, given the likelihood of the observations from multiple receivers (RXs). We propose three different ML detection variants according to different constraints on the information available to the FC, which enables us to demonstrate trade- offs in their performance versus the information available. The system error probability for one variant is derived in closed form. Numerical and simulation results show that the ML detection variants provide lower bounds on the error performance of the simpler cooperative variants and demonstrate that majority rule detection has performance comparable to ML detection when the reporting is noisy.

Physical layer security is a promising way to secure the wireless communications in the Internet of Things (IoT). Motivated by the fact that the limited feedback resources in the IoT network would degrade the secrecy advantage of the multiple-antenna technique, we attempt to investigate the problem of how many transmit antennas should be utilized to perform secure communications. In particular, we consider the heterogeneous IoT downlink network and design a multiuser secure transmission scheme. In this scheme, the zero-forcing beamforming technique is adopted to serve the IoT legitimate users, and the remaining spatial freedoms are utilized to send artificial noise (AN) for confusing the passive eavesdroppers. Given the secrecy outage constraints, we derive the closed-form expression for the network secrecy throughput and formulate a non-convex optimization problem with multiple parameters, e.g., the number of transmit antennas, the wiretap codes, the feedback bits allocation strategy, and the power allocation ratio between the information bearing signal and the AN. To effectively tackle this problem, we develop an optimization framework involving the block coordinate descent algorithm and the 1-D search method. Simulation results validate the effectiveness of our proposed optimization framework and show that the optimal number of transmit antennas increases as the secrecy outage constraints become stricter, or the feedback resources become scarcer.

In this paper, we consider multiple-input single-output multi-eavesdropper cognitive radio networks (MISOME-CRNs), where a secondary user (SU) aims to transmit confidential information to a legitimate SU receiver in the presence of a primary user (PU) and a multi-antenna passive eavesdropper in fast fading environments. For this system setting, we study beamforming with artificial noise (AN) for the SU to achieve confidential communications. We consider designing an AN-assisted optimal beamforming scheme, denoted cognitive beamforming (CB), which maximizes the ergodic secrecy rate. Moreover, we propose two suboptimal beamforming schemes, namely, scaled beamforming (SB) and projected beamforming (PB). We develop an analytical framework to assess the performance of the proposed schemes in a unified manner. First, we analyze the achievable ergodic secrecy rate of the three schemes. Second, we derive the optimal power allocation for the information and AN signals that maximizes the achievable ergodic secrecy rate in the large-antenna regime. Third, we study the performance of the three schemes in terms of the secrecy outage probability. Using numerical simulations, we validate our analytical results and show that CB achieves the best performance among the three proposed schemes. In addition, we provide insights into the effect of various system parameters on the secrecy performance. In particular, we show that the interference threshold at the PU plays an important role in the beamforming design.

This paper proposes a new channel training (CT) scheme for a full-duplex receiver to enhance physical layer security. Equipped with NBfull-duplex antennas, the receiver simultaneously receives the information signal and transmits artificial noise (AN). In order to reduce the non-cancellable self-interference due to the transmitted AN, the receiver has to estimate the self-interference channel prior to the data communication phase. In the proposed CT scheme, the receiver transmits a limited number of pilot symbols that are known only to itself. Such a secret CT scheme prevents an eavesdropper from estimating the jamming channel from the receiver to the eavesdropper, hence effectively degrading the eavesdropping capability. We analytically examine the connection probability (i.e., the probability of the data being successfully decoded by the receiver) of the legitimate channel and the secrecy outage probability due to eavesdropping for the proposed secret CT scheme. Based on our analysis, the optimal power allocation between CT and data/AN transmission at the legitimate transmitter/receiver is determined. Our examination shows that the newly proposed secret CT scheme significantly outperforms the non-secret CT scheme that uses publicly known pilots when the number of antennas at the eavesdropper is larger than one.

In this paper, a novel joint design of beamforming and power allocation is proposed for a multi-cell multiuser multiple-input multiple-output non-orthogonal multiple access network. In this network, base stations adopt coordinated multipoint for downlink transmission. We study a new scenario where the users are divided into two groups according to their quality-of-service requirements, rather than their channel qualities as investigated in the literature. Our proposed joint design aims to maximize the sum rate of the users in one group with the best effort while guaranteeing the minimum required target rates of the users in the other group. The joint design is formulated as a non-convex NP-hard problem. To make the problem tractable, a series of transformations is adopted to simplify the design problem. Then, an iterative suboptimal resource allocation algorithm based on successive convex approximation is proposed. In each iteration, a rank-constrained optimization problem is solved optimally via semidefinite program relaxation. Numerical results reveal that the proposed scheme offers significant sum-rate gains compared to the existing schemes and converges fast to a suboptimal solution.

This paper introduces downlink non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) into short-packet communications. NOMA has great potential to improve fairness and spectral efficiency with respect to orthogonal multiple access (OMA) for low-latency downlink transmission, thus making it attractive for the emerging Internet of Things. We consider a two-user downlink NOMA system with finite blocklength constraints, in which the transmission rates and power allocation are optimized. To this end, we investigate the trade-off among the transmission rate, decoding error probability, and the transmission latency measured in blocklength. Then, a 1-D search algorithm is proposed to resolve the challenges mainly due to the achievable rate affected by the finite blocklength and the unguaranteed successive interference cancellation. We also analyze the performance of OMA as a benchmark to fully demonstrate the benefit of NOMA. Our simulation results show that NOMA significantly outperforms OMA in terms of achieving a higher effective throughput subject to the same finite blocklength constraint, or incurring a lower latency to achieve the same effective throughput target. Interestingly, we further find that with the finite blocklength, the advantage of NOMA relative to OMA is more prominent when the effective throughput targets at the two users become more comparable.

We propose a novel joint user and full-duplex (FD) relay selection (JUFDRS) scheme to enhance physical layer security in a multi-user multi-relay network. In this scheme, the user and the FD decode-and-forward relay are selected such that the capacity of the end-to-end user-relay-destination channel is maximized to ensure the highest quality of cooperative transmission. To fully examine the benefits of the JUFDRS scheme, we derive a new closed-form expression for the secrecy outage probability. We show that the JUFDRS scheme significantly outperforms the joint user and half-duplex relay selection (JUHDRS) scheme when the self-interference at the FD relay can be reasonably suppressed. This result indicates that adopting the FD technique at relays can effectively enhance the physical layer secrecy performance in the multi-user multi-relay network.

In this work, we propose a new channel training (CT) scheme to enhance physical layer security in a full-duplex wiretap channel, where the multi-antenna and full-duplex receiver simultaneously receives the information signal and transmits artificial noise (AN). In order to suppress the self-interference caused by AN, the receiver has to estimate the self-interference channel prior to the data communication phase. In the proposed CT scheme, the receiver transmits limited pilot symbols which are known only to itself, which prevents the eavesdropper from estimating the jamming channel from the receiver to the eavesdropper, hence effectively degrades the eavesdropping capability. Compared with the traditional CT scheme that uses publicly known pilots, the newly proposed secret CT scheme offers significantly better performance when the number of antennas at the eavesdropper is larger than one, e.g., Ne> 1. The optimal power allocation between CT and data/AN transmission at the legitimate transmitter/receiver is determined for the proposed secret CT scheme.

Diffusion-based molecular communication (MC) systems experience significant reliability losses. To boost the reliability, a MC scheme where multiple receivers (RXs) work cooperatively to decide the signal of a transmitter (TX) by sending the same type of molecules to a fusion center (FC) is proposed in this paper. The FC observes the total number of molecules received and compares this number with a threshold to determine the TX's signal. The proposed scheme is more bio-realistic and requires relatively low computational complexity compared to existing cooperative schemes where the RXs send and the FC recognizes different types of molecules. Asymmetric and symmetric topologies are considered, and closed-form expressions are derived for the global error probability for both topologies. Results show that the trade-off for simplified computations leads to a slight reduction in error performance, compared to the existing cooperative schemes.

Bacteria populations rely on mechanisms such as quorum sensing to coordinate complex tasks that cannot be achieved by a single bacterium. Quorum sensing is used to measure the local bacteria population density, and it controls cooperation by ensuring that a bacterium only commits the resources for cooperation when it expects its neighbors to reciprocate. This paper proposes a simple model for sharing a resource in a bacterial environment, where knowledge of the population influences each bacterium's behavior. Game theory is used to model the behavioral dynamics, where the net payoff (i.e., utility) for each bacterium is a function of its current behavior and that of the other bacteria. The game is first evaluated with perfect knowledge of the population. Then, the unreliability of diffusion introduces uncertainty in the local population estimate and changes the perceived payoffs. The results demonstrate the sensitivity to the system parameters and how population uncertainty can overcome a lack of explicit coordination.

This paper proposes a new design of non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) under secrecy considerations. We focus on a NOMA system, where a transmitter sends confidential messages to multiple users in the presence of an external eavesdropper. The optimal designs of decoding order, transmission rates, and power allocated to each user are investigated. Considering the practical passive eavesdropping scenario where the instantaneous channel state of the eavesdropper is unknown, we adopt the secrecy outage probability as the secrecy metric. We first consider the problem of minimizing the transmit power subject to the secrecy outage and quality of service constraints, and derive the closed-form solution to this problem. We then explore the problem of maximizing the minimum confidential information rate among users subject to the secrecy outage and transmit power constraints, and provide an iterative algorithm to solve this problem. We find that the secrecy outage constraint in the studied problems does not change the optimal decoding order for NOMA, and one should increase the power allocated to the user whose channel is relatively bad when the secrecy constraint becomes more stringent. Finally, we show the advantage of NOMA over orthogonal multiple access in the studied problems both analytically and numerically.

This paper quantifies the impact of correlated fading on secure communication of multiple amplify-and-forward (AF) relaying networks. In such a network, the base station (BS) is equipped with multiple antennas and communicates with the destination through multiple AF relays, while the message from the relays can be overheard by an eavesdropper. We focus on the practical communication scenario, where the main and eavesdropper's channels are correlated. In order to enhance the transmission security, transmit antenna selection is performed at the BS, and the best relay is chosen according to the full- or partial-relay selection criterion, which relies on the dual-hop relay channels or the second-hop relay channels, respectively. For these criteria, we study the impact of correlated fading on the network secrecy performance, by deriving an analytical approximation for the secrecy outage probability and an asymptotic expression for the high main-to-eavesdropper ratio. From these results, it is concluded that the channel correlation is always beneficial to the secrecy performance of full relay selection. However, it deteriorates the secrecy performance if partial-relay selection is used, when the number of antennas at the BS is less than the number of relays.

In this paper, a transmit antenna selection (TAS)-based incremental hybrid decode-amplify-forward (IHDAF) scheme is proposed to enhance physical layer security in cooperative relay networks. Specifically, TAS is adopted at the source in order to reduce the feedback overhead. In the proposed TAS-based IHDAF scheme, the network transmits signals to the destination adaptive select direction transmission (DT) mode, AF mode, or DF mode depending on the capacity of the source-relay link and source-relay link. In order to fully examine the benefits of the proposed TAS-based IHDAF scheme, we first derive its secrecy outage probability (SOP) in a closed-form expression. We then conduct asymptotic analysis on the SOP, which reveals the secrecy performance floor of the proposed TAS-based IHDAF scheme when no channel state information is available at the source. Theoretical analysis and simulation results demonstrate that the proposed TAS-based IHDAF scheme outperforms the selective decode-and-forward, the incremental decode-and-forward, and the noncooperative DT schemes in terms of the SOP and effective secrecy throughout, especially when the relay is close to the destination. Furthermore, the proposed TAS-based IHDAF scheme offer a good tradeoff between complexity and performance compared with using all antennas at the source.

We design novel transmission strategies to maximize the energy efficiency (EE) of the uplink multi-user multipleinput and multiple-output relay channel. In this channel, K multi-antenna users communicate with a multi-antenna base station (BS) through a multi-antenna relay. To achieve the goal of EE maximization, we propose new iterative algorithms to jointly optimize the multi-user precoder and the relay precoder under transmit power constraints for two cases. In the first case, the perfect global channel state information (CSI) is available, while in the second case, the CSI between the relay and the BS is imperfect. To surmount the non-convexity of our formulated EE optimization problems in both cases, we introduce the parameter subtractive function into the proposed algorithms. Then, the EE parameter in the parameter subtractive function is updated by Dinkelbach's algorithm in the perfect CSI case, and by the bisection method in the imperfect CSI case. Moreover, in the perfect CSI case, the relay precoder is optimized by the diagonalization operation and the multi-user precoder is optimized based on the weighted minimum mean square error method. Differently, in the imperfect CSI case, we apply the sign-definiteness lemma to promote the semidefinite programming formulation of the EE optimization problem. Furthermore, we present the numerical results to demonstrate that our proposed iterative algorithms have a good convergence rate in both cases. In addition, we show that our proposed iterative algorithms achieve a higher EE performance than the existing algorithms in both CSI cases.

We design a novel artificial-noise-aided secure ON-OFF transmission scheme in a wiretap channel. We consider a practical scenario, where the multi-antenna transmitter only obtains partial channel knowledge from the single-antenna receiver through limited training and feedback but has no channel knowledge about the single-antenna eavesdropper. In the design, we first propose a three-period block transmission protocol to capture the practical training and quantization features. We then characterize the statistics of the received signal-to-noise ratios at the receiver and the eavesdropper. Under the secrecy outage constraint, we exploit the ON-OFF scheme to perform secure transmission and derive a closed-form expression for the secrecy throughput. Moreover, we investigate the optimization problem of maximizing the secrecy throughput by proposing an iterative algorithm to determine the optimal power allocation between the information signal and artificial noise, as well as the optimal codeword transmission rate. Furthermore, we define the net secrecy throughput (NST), which takes the signaling overhead into account and address the problem of optimally allocating the block resource to the training and feedback overhead. Numerical results clearly demonstrate how the optimal signaling overhead changes with the number of transmit antennas, and there exists an optimal number of antennas that maximizes the NST.

We propose a novel algorithm to design user load- achieving pilot sequences that mitigate pilot contamination in multi-cell massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) networks. To this end, we first derive expressions for the user load and the load region of the network considering both small- scale and large-scale propagation effects. We then develop the pilot sequence algorithm for multi- cell massive MIMO networks as per the rules of generalized Welch bound equality design. Notably, we find that our algorithm and the corresponding downlink power allocation ensure that the user load is achieved when the signal-to-interference- plus-noise ratio (SINR) requirements for the users lie within the load region. Furthermore, we demonstrate the performance advantage of our proposed design relative to the existing designs, in terms of a larger load region and a higher maximum permitted SINR. Finally, we show that our proposed design can satisfy the pre-defined SINR requirements for users with a finite number of antennas at the base station (BS), while the existing designs cannot satisfy the same requirements even with an infinite number of antennas at the BS.

In this paper, a cooperative diffusion-based molecular communication system is considered where distributed receivers collaboratively determine a transmitter's signal. In this system, the receivers first make local hard decisions about the current transmitted bit and then report these decisions to a fusion center (FC). The FC combines the local hard decisions to make a global decision using an N-out-of-K fusion rule. Asymmetric and symmetric topologies are considered and for each topology, two reporting scenarios, namely, perfect reporting and noisy reporting, are addressed. Closed-form analytical expressions for the expected global error probability are derived for all considered topologies and scenarios. Numerical and simulation results show that system reliability can be greatly improved by combining the detection information of distributed receivers.

We examine for the first time the impact of transmitter-side correlation on the secure transmission with artificial noise (AN), based on which a new power allocation strategy for AN is devised for physical layer security enhancement. Specifically, we design a correlation-based power allocation (CPA) for AN, of which the optimality in terms of achieving the minimum secrecy outage probability is analytically proved in the large system regime with the number of transmit antennas approaching infinity. Our numerical results demonstrate that CPA is nearly optimal and can significantly outperform the widely-used uniform power allocation (UPA) even for a moderate (finite) number of correlated transmit antennas. Our numerical results also reveal a fundamental difference between the secrecy performance of CPA and that of UPA. When the number of correlated transmit antennas increases, we find that the secrecy outage probability of CPA always reduces while the secrecy outage probability of UPA suffers from a saturation point.

A generalised selection transmission (GST) and generalised selection combining (GSC) scheme is proposed for two‐way relay networks where two multi‐antenna sources exchange information via a single‐antenna relay. New exact and asymptotic expressions are derived for the outage probability and symbol error rate (SER) in Rayleigh fading. Moreover, a tight upper bound on the ergodic sum‐rate is presented. These results are used to demonstrate that the proposed GST/GSC scheme preserves the full diversity order, which equals the minimum number of antennas at the two sources. It is also shown that the impact of the number of selected antennas lies in the array gain only. Furthermore, the GST/GSC scheme significantly improves the performance relative to single‐antenna selection, and only incurs a negligible reduction in performance relative to all‐antenna beamforming. Finally, the optimal relay location that minimises the SER is determined analytically. It is observed that the optimal relay location shifts towards one source when the number of selected or available antennas at the other source increases.

We propose a novel pilot sequence design to mitigate pilot contamination in multi-cell multiuser massive multiple-input multiple-output networks. Our proposed design generates pilot sequences in the multi-cell network and devises power allocation at base stations (BSs) for downlink transmission. The pilot sequences together with the power allocation ensure that the user capacity of the network is achieved and the pre-defined signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) requirements of all users are met. To realize our design, we first derive new closed-form expressions for the user capacity and the user capacity region. Built upon these expressions, we then develop a new algorithm to obtain the required pilot sequences and power allocation. We further determine the minimum number of antennas required at the BSs to achieve certain SINR requirements of all users. The numerical results are presented to corroborate our analysis and to examine the impact of key parameters, such as the pilot sequence length and the total number of users, on the network performance. A pivotal conclusion is reached that our design achieves a larger user capacity region than the existing designs and needs less antennas at the BS to fulfill the pre-defined SINR requirements of all users in the network than the existing designs.

We present two physical layer secure transmission schemes for multiuser multirelay networks, where the communication from M users to the base station is assisted by direct links and by N decode-and-forward relays. In this network, we consider that a passive eavesdropper exists to overhear the transmitted information, which entails exploiting the advantages of both direct and relay links for physical layer security enhancement. To fulfill this requirement, we investigate two criteria for user and relay selection and examine the achievable secrecy performance. Criterion I performs a joint user and relay selection, while Criterion II performs separate user and relay selections, with a lower implementation complexity. We derive a tight lower bound on the secrecy outage probability for Criterion I and an accurate analytical expression for the secrecy outage probability for Criterion II. We further derive the asymptotic secrecy outage probabilities at high transmit signal-to-noise ratios and high main-to-eavesdropper ratios for both criteria. We demonstrate that the secrecy diversity order is min (MN, M + N) for Criterion I, and N for Criterion II. Finally, we present numerical and simulation results to validate the proposed analysis, and show the occurrence condition of the secrecy outage probability floor.

We design a new relay-aided secure transmission scheme, in which a source communicates with a destination through a trusted decode-and-forward relay in the presence of spatially random-distributed non-colluding eavesdroppers. We consider a general antenna configuration, in which the source, relay, destination, and eavesdroppers are equipped with multiple antennas. We assume that both the source and the relay transmit artificial noise signals in addition to information signals. We also assume that the source and the relay adopt different codebooks, and that the transmitted signals from the source and relay are not jointly processed at each eavesdropper. We first derive a closed-form expression for the transmission outage probability and a new expression for the secrecy outage probability. Notably, these expressions are valid for an arbitrary number of antennas at the source, relay, and destination. We then derive simple yet valuable expressions for the asymptotic transmission outage probability and the asymptotic secrecy outage probability, which reveal the secrecy performance when the number of antennas at the source grows sufficiently large. Using our expressions, we quantify a practical performance metric, namely, the secrecy throughput, under a secrecy outage probability constraint. We further determine the system and channel parameters that maximize the secrecy throughput, leading to analytical security solutions suitable for real-world deployment.

This paper, for the first time, examines the impact of transmitter-side correlation on the artificial-noise (AN)-aided secure transmission, based on which a new power allocation strategy for AN is devised for physical layer security enhancement. Specifically, we design a correlation-based power allocation (CPA) for AN, of which the optimality in terms of achieving the minimum secrecy outage probability is analytically proved in the large system regime with the number of transmit antennas approaching infinity. In order to fully reveal the benefits of the CPA, we derive easy-to-evaluate expressions for the secrecy outage probability achieved by the CPA. Our study demonstrates that the CPA is nearly optimal and significantly outperforms the widely used uniform power allocation (UPA) even for a moderately small number of correlated transmit antennas. Furthermore, our numerical results reveal a fundamental difference between the CPA and UPA. That is when the number of correlated transmit antennas increases, the secrecy outage probability of the CPA always reduces while the secrecy outage probability of the UPA suffers from a saturation point.

We analyze the secrecy outage probability of selective relaying wiretap channels with K decode- and-forward (DF) relays and N collaborative eavesdroppers. In the main channel, we consider a two-hop relay network where the best relay is selected to transmit and the relay link is combined with the direct source-to-destination link at the destination. In the eavesdropper channel, we consider that the eavesdroppers can collaborate to exchange the information obtained from the source and relays. Different from previous works, we introduce an eavesdropping probability measure to model different intercepting capabilities of the malicious nodes. For this network, we derive new closed-form expressions for the secrecy outage probability in Rayleigh fading channels. The impact of the number of eavesdroppers and the eavesdropping probabilities are accurately reflected in the array gain of the asymptotic secrecy outage probability.

We design a linear precoder based on the principles of the generalized regularized channel inversion (RCI) precoder that achieves confidential broadcasting in a two-cell network. In each cell of the network, an N-antenna base station (BS) communicates with K single-antenna users. We consider coordinated beamforming where the BSs in the two cells do not share messages but the users in the two cells feed back their channel state information to both BSs. In the precoder design, we determine the optimal regularization parameter that maximizes the secrecy sum rate. To this end, we derive new channel-independent expressions for the secrecy sum rate in the large-system regime, where K and N approach infinity with a fixed ratio μ = K/N. Moreover, we propose a power-reduction strategy that significantly improves the secrecy sum rate at high transmit signal-to-noise ratios when μ is higher than 0.5.

In this paper, we build a unified analytical framework that allows for analysis and comparison of three device-to-device (D2D) mode selection schemes proposed in the literature to date, namely the distance cut-off scheme, the link gain scheme and the guard zone scheme. In the framework we adopt Poisson point process (PPP) assumptions to model the cellular and D2D interference, respectively. Using stochastic geometry, we derive easy to implement expressions for the success probability at a typical base station (BS) and a typical D2D receiver (RX) in an underlay in-band D2D-enabled single tier cellular network. Comparing the derived analytical results with simulations, we show that the PPP assumptions are accurate for the success probability at the BS. Moreover, they provide a good approximation for the success probability at the D2D RX when the D2D RX is located close to the cell edge. Furthermore, the distance cut-off scheme generally outperforms other mode selection schemes.

Location information has been shown to be useful for a wide variety of applications in wireless networks, while its role in physical layer security has so far drawn little attention. In this work, we propose a new location-based secure transmission scheme for wiretap channels, where the accurate locations of the sources, destinations and any other authorized transceivers are known, but only an estimate of the eavesdropper's location is available. We outline how such an estimate of the eavesdropper's location can still allow for quantitative assessment of key security metrics. To provide focus, we describe how optimization of the effective secrecy throughput of a relay wiretap channel is obtained in our scheme, and investigate in detail the impact of the location uncertainty on the system performance. The work reported here provides insights into the design of new location-based physical layer security schemes in which the only information available on an eavesdropper is a noisy estimate of her location.

We analyze and optimize the secrecy performance of artificial noise (AN) in multi-input single-output wiretap channels with multiple antennas at the transmitter and a single antenna at the receiver and the eavesdropper. We consider two transmission schemes: 1) an on-off transmission scheme with a constant secrecy rate for all transmission periods, and 2) an adaptive transmission scheme with a varying secrecy rate during each transmission period. For the on-off transmission scheme, an easy-to-compute expression is derived for the hybrid outage probability, which allows us to evaluate the transmission outage probability and the secrecy outage probability. For the adaptive transmission scheme where transmission outage does not occur, we derive a closed-form expression for the secrecy outage probability. Using these expressions, we determine the optimal power allocation between the information signal and the AN signal and also determine the optimal secrecy rate such that the effective secrecy throughput is maximized for both transmission schemes. We show that the maximum effective secrecy throughput requires more power to be allocated to the AN signal when the quality of the transmitter-receiver channel or the transmitter-eavesdropper channel improves. We also show that both transmission schemes achieve a higher maximum effective secrecy throughput while incurring a lower secrecy outage probability than existing schemes.

We propose a new secure transmission scheme in the multi-input multi-output multi-eavesdropper wiretap channel. In this channel, the NA-antenna transmitter adopts transmit antenna selection (TAS) to choose the antenna that maximizes the instantaneous signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the receiver to transmit, while the NB-antenna receiver and the NE-antenna eavesdropper adopt maximal-ratio combining (MRC) to combine the received signals. We focus on the practical scenario where the channel state information (CSI) during the TAS process is outdated. In this scenario, we propose a new transmission scheme to prevent the detrimental effect of the outdated CSI on the wiretap codes design at the transmitter. To thoroughly assess the secrecy performance achieved by the proposed scheme, we derive new closed-form expressions for the exact secrecy outage probability and the probability of non-zero secrecy capacity for arbitrary SNRs. We also derive new compact expressions for the asymptotic secrecy outage probability at high SNRs. Notably, in the analysis, we take spatial correlation at the receiver into consideration. Apart from the advantage of our scheme over the conventional TAS/MRC scheme, we demonstrate that the outdated TAS reduces the secrecy diversity order from NANBto NB. We also demonstrate that antenna correlation improves the secrecy performance at low SNR but deteriorates the secrecy performance at medium and high SNRs, by affecting the secrecy array gain only.

We design linear precoders that perform confidential broadcasting in multi-cell networks for two different forms of base station (BS) cooperation, namely, multi-cell processing (MCP) and coordinated beamforming (CBf). We consider a two-cell network where each cell consists of an $N$-antenna BS and $K$ single-antenna users. For such a network, we design a linear precoder based on the regularized channel inversion (RCI) for the MCP and a linear precoder based on the generalized RCI for the CBf. For each form of BS cooperation, we derive new channel-independent expressions to approximate the secrecy sum rate achieved by the precoder in the large system regime where $K,N\rightarrow\infty$ with a fixed ratio $\beta=K/N$. Using these results, we determine the optimal regularization parameters of the RCI and the generalized RCI precoders that maximize the secrecy sum rate for the MCP and the CBf, respectively. We further propose power-reduction strategies that significantly increase the secrecy sum rate at high transmit signal-to-noise ratios when the network load is high. Our numerical results substantiate the derived expressions, verify the optimality of the determined optimal regularization parameters, and demonstrate the performance improvement offered by the proposed power-reduction strategies.

We propose a new partial feedback scheme in multiuser relay networks (MRNs) where a source communicates with K destinations via a relay. We focus on a practical network model where orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) is adopted in the downlink and only limited feedback overhead is supported in the uplink. For this model, we consider that the OFDMA spectrum consists of MRB resource blocks (RBs). In the proposed scheme, the destinations feed back the channel quality information (CQI) for the best MFB RBs, instead of all MRB RBs, to the source through the relay, which fulfills the requirement of feedback overhead. Considering the highly versatile Nakagami-m fading, we derive new closed-form expressions for the exact sum rate for ideal CQI feedback and quantized CQI feedback. We also derive the asymptotic sum rate expression for ideal CQI feedback. We have some new findings to understand the impact of network and channel parameters on the sum rate. First, a more scattering fading environment with a lower m decreases the sum rate for a small K, but increases the sum rate for a large K. Second, the sum rate increases as MFB approaches MRB. Third, the sum rate gap between ideal CQI feedback and quantized CQI feedback increases when MFB or K increases. Fourth, we demonstrate that the proposed partial feedback scheme achieves almost the same sum rate as the full feedback scheme for a large number of destinations.

We propose a new framework for determining the wiretap code rates of single-input-single-output multiantenna eavesdropper wiretap channels when the capacity of the eavesdropper's channel is not available at the transmitter. In our framework, we introduce the effective secrecy throughput (EST) as a new performance metric that explicitly captures the two key features of wiretap channels, namely, reliability and secrecy. Notably, the EST measures the average rate of the confidential information transmitted from the transmitter to the intended receiver without being eavesdropped on. We provide easy-to-implement methods to determine the wiretap code rates for two transmission schemes: 1) adaptive transmission scheme in which the capacity of the main channel is available at the transmitter and 2) fixed-rate transmission scheme in which the capacity of the main channel is not available at the transmitter. Such determinations are further extended into an absolute-passive eavesdropping scenario where even the average signal-to-noise ratio of the eavesdropper's channel is not available at the transmitter. Notably, our solutions for the wiretap code rates do not require us to set reliability or secrecy constraints for the transmission within wiretap channels.

In this paper, we investigate space-time network coding (STNC) in cooperative multiple-input multiple-output networks, where U users communicate with a common destination D with the aid of R decode-and-forward relays. The transmit antenna selection with maximal-ratio combining (TAS/MRC) is adopted in user-destination and relay-destination links where a single transmit antenna that maximizes the instantaneous received signal-to-noise ratio is selected and fed back to transmitter by receiver and all the receive antennas are combined with MRC. In the presence of perfect feedback, we derive new exact and asymptotic closed-form expressions for the outage probability (OP) and the symbol error rate (SER) of STNC with TAS/MRC in independent but not necessarily identically distributed Rayleigh fading channels. We demonstrate that STNC with TAS/MRC guarantees full diversity order. To quantify the impact of delayed feedback, we further derive new exact and asymptotic OP and SER expressions in closed form. We prove that the delayed feedback degrades the full diversity order to (R + 1)ND, where ND is the antenna number of the destination D. Numerical and Monte Carlo simulation results are provided to demonstrate the accuracy of our theoretical analysis and evaluate the impact of network parameters on the performance of STNC with TAS/MRC.

We propose two beamforming schemes supporting multi-stream transmission in multi-input multi-output multi-antenna eavesdropper wiretap channels with imperfect channel state information of the eavesdropper. We first propose a generalized eigenvalue decomposition (GEVD)-based beamforming scheme by designing the beamforming matrix and determining the power allocation matrix. In particular, we determine a general power allocation matrix for arbitrary signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and a simplified power allocation matrix for high SNR. We demonstrate that our GEVD-based beamforming scheme delivers a higher achievable secrecy rate than the existing beamforming schemes in the medium and high SNR regime. We also demonstrate that the simplified power allocation matrix delivers the same achievable secrecy rate as the general power allocation matrix at high SNRs. We then propose an easy-to-construct EVD-based beamforming scheme which reduces signal processing cost and eliminates power allocation. We demonstrate that our EVD-based beamforming scheme delivers a higher secrecy rate than the GEVD-based beamforming scheme and the existing beamforming schemes in the low SNR regime.

This paper advocates physical layer security in wiretap channels with two-wave with diffuse power fading. In such a wiretap channel, we consider that confidential messages transmitted from a single antenna transmitter to an M-antenna receiver is overheard by an N-antenna eavesdropper. The receiver adopts maximal-ratio combining (MRC) to enhance transmission security, whereas the eavesdropper adopts MRC to maximize the probability of successful eavesdropping. We develop a new analytical framework to characterize the average secrecy capacity as the principal security performance metric in active eavesdropping. Specifically, we derive new closed-form expressions for the exact and asymptotic average secrecy capacity. Based on these, we determine the high signal-to-noise ratio power offset to explicitly quantify the impact of the main channel and the eavesdropper's channel on the average secrecy capacity.

We propose a new framework for optimizing the target secrecy rate for SISOME wiretap channels when the instantaneous capacity of the eavesdropper's channel is not available at the transmitter. In our framework we introduce the effective secrecy throughput, a new optimization metric that implicitly captures the two key features of wiretap channels, namely, reliability and secrecy. We derive target secrecy rates which maximize the effective secrecy throughput for two different schemes, an on-off transmission scheme and an adaptive transmission scheme. Our analysis demonstrates that the adaptive transmission scheme outperforms the on-off transmission scheme and that the difference in the effective secrecy throughput between the two schemes increases with the SNR of the main channel. The work reported here solves the important problem of how to optimally set the target secrecy rate of wiretap codes for an important class of channels. Notably, our solution for the target secrecy rate does not require us to set a priori any reliability or secrecy constraint for the channel.

We analyze and optimize the use of artificial noise (AN) for a predefined secrecy rate in wiretap channels with a multi-antenna transmitter, a single-antenna receiver, and a single-antenna eavesdropper. We derive a new closed-form expression for the secrecy outage probability that is independent of the channel realization. Based on this expression, we first optimize the power allocation between the information signal and the AN signal such that the secrecy outage probability is minimized. We then optimize jointly the power allocation and secrecy rate such that the secrecy throughput is maximized. As demonstrated by our analysis, the minimum secrecy outage probability requires more power to be allocated to the AN signal when the quality of the main channel quality or the eavesdropper's channel improves.

We propose linear precoding with power control to achieve confidential broadcasting in multi-input-multi-output multiuser networks such that the base station (BS) with Ntantennas securely broadcasts messages to K users with Nrantennas each. We focus on the practical non-homogeneous scenario where the distances between the BS and the users are not equal. We first design a linear precoder based on regularized channel inversion, and derive new channel-independent expressions for the achievable secrecy sum-rate in the large system regime. With the aid of these expressions, we examine the impact of user dispersion, Nt, and K on the secrecy sum-rate. We then propose a power reduction strategy and power allocation algorithms to increase the secrecy sum-rate. We demonstrate that our power reduction strategy increases the secrecy sum-rate at high signal-to-noise ratios. We also show the secrecy sum-rate advantage of optimal power allocation over equal power allocation. Furthermore, we consider channel correlation and derive an easy-to-compute expression for the secrecy sum-rate to examine its impact on the secrecy performance.

This paper advocates physical layer security of maximal ratio combining (MRC) in wiretap two-wave with diffuse power fading channels. In such a wiretap channel, we consider that confidential messages transmitted from a single antenna transmitter to an M-antenna receiver are overheard by an N-antenna eavesdropper. The receiver adopts MRC to maximize the probability of secure transmission, whereas the eavesdropper adopts MRC to maximize the probability of successful eavesdropping. We derive the secrecy performance for two practical scenarios: 1) the eavesdropper's channel state information (CSI) is available at the transmitter and 2) the eavesdropper's CSI is not available at the transmitter. For the first scenario, we develop a new analytical framework to characterize the average secrecy capacity as the principal security performance metric. Specifically, we derive new closed-form expressions for the exact and asymptotic average secrecy capacity. Based on these, we determine the high signal-to-noise ratio power offset to explicitly quantify the impacts of the main channel and the eavesdropper's channel on the average secrecy capacity. For the second scenario, the secrecy outage probability is the primary security performance metric. Here, we derive new closed-form expressions for the exact and asymptotic secrecy outage probability. We also derive the probability of nonzero secrecy capacity. The asymptotic secrecy outage probability explicitly indicates that the positive impact of M is reflected in the secrecy diversity order and the negative impact of N is reflected in the secrecy array gain. Motivated by this, we examine the performance gap between N and N+1 antennas based on their respective secrecy array gains.

We propose transmit antenna selection with receive generalized selection combining in dual-hop cognitive decode-and-forward relay networks with spectrum sharing for reliability enhancement and interference relaxation. In this network, a single antenna, which maximizes the receive signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is selected at the secondary transmitter, and a subset of receive antennas with the highest SNRs is combined at the secondary receiver. To demonstrate the advantages of our proposed framework, we derive new exact closed-form expressions for the outage probability and the symbol error rate of the secondary network in Rayleigh fading. We also derive easy-to-evaluate asymptotic expressions in the high-SNR regime to gain practical insights. Several important design insights are reached. Under the proportional interference power constraint, the full diversity gain is achieved and is entirely determined by the total number of antennas available in the secondary network. This result is independent of the number of receive antennas combined and the number of primary users. The positive impact of the number of receive antennas combined and the negative impact of the number of primary users on the secondary network are showcased in the SNR gain. Under the fixed interference power constraint, error floors are displayed, and the diversity gain is lost.

In this work, we propose a new transmit antenna selection (TAS) scheme which examines the trade-off between feedback overhead and secrecy performance in multiple-input multiple-output wiretap channels. Our new scheme is carried out in two steps. First, the transmitter selects the first two strongest antennas to maximize the instantaneous signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the transmitter-receiver channel. Second, Alamouti coding is employed at the selected antennas in order to perform secure data transmission. When equal power is applied to the selected antennas, we refer to our new scheme as TAS-Alamouti. To provide valuable insights into TAS-Alamouti, we derive new closed-form expressions for the secrecy performance metrics. In terms of these metrics, we show how in a Rayleigh fading channel that our TAS-Alamouti scheme outperforms the traditional single TAS scheme conditioned on the SNR of the transmitter-receiver channel being larger than a specific value. We show how in some antenna configurations no additional feedback, relative to single TAS, is required in order to realize such performance enhancements. Furthermore, we show how optimal power allocation (OPA) across the selected antennas at the transmitter leads to a new scheme, which we refer to as TAS-Alamouti-OPA, that outperforms single TAS unconditionally. Relative to TAS-Alamouti, TAS-Alamouti-OPA requires only one additional feedback bit.

In this paper, we propose a new beamforming scheme for multi-input multi-output (MIMO) Gaussian wiretap channels where the channel state information (CSI) from the eavesdropper is imperfectly known to the transmitter. A stochastic model is constructed to characterize the imperfect CSI of the eavesdropper, in which a factor 0 ≤ τ ≤ 1 is introduced to describe the degree of the available eavesdropper's channel knowledge at the transmitter. When τ varies from 0 to 1, the eavesdropper's channel knowledge available at the transmitter ranges from statistically known to perfectly known. We design the proposed beamforming scheme by maximizing a lower bound on the achievable secrecy rate. We first demonstrate that our scheme achieves higher secrecy rate than the existing eigenvalue decomposition-based beamforming scheme which is optimal for τ = 0. We then demonstrate that the proposed scheme achieves higher secrecy rate than the existing generalized eigenvalue decomposition-based beamforming scheme which is optimal for τ = 1. Furthermore, we derive tight approximations for the proposed beamforming scheme in the high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regime and the low SNR regime. The accuracy of these approximations is validated via numerical results. Finally, we demonstrate that our proposed scheme achieves almost the same secrecy performance as the optimal beamforming solution that is obtained through numerical search.

This paper proposes a new transmit antenna selection (TAS) scheme which provides enhanced physical layer security in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wiretap channels. The practical passive eavesdropping scenario we consider is where channel state information (CSI) from the eavesdropper is not available at the transmitter. Our new scheme is carried out in two steps. First, the transmitter selects the two strongest antennas based on the feedback from the receiver, which maximizes the instantaneous signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the transmitter-receiver channel. Second, the Alamouti scheme is employed at the selected antennas in order to perform data transmission. At the receiver and the eavesdropper, maximal-ratio combining is applied in order to exploit the multiple antennas. We derive a new closed-form expression for the secrecy outage probability in non-identical Rayleigh fading, and using this result, we then present the probability of non-zero secrecy capacity in closed form and the ε-outage secrecy capacity in numerical form. We demonstrate that our proposed TAS-Alamouti scheme offers lower secrecy outage probability than a single TAS scheme when the SNR of the transmitter-receiver channel is above a specific value.

In this paper, we propose two cooperative jamming protocols in two-hop amplify-and-forward (AF) wiretap channels: 1) jamming signal at the source (JSS) and 2) jamming signal at the relay (JSR). We apply optimal power allocation (OPA) between the useful signal and the jamming signal to maximize the secrecy rate for each of the protocols. A fundamental question to address is “Which cooperative jamming protocol is superior under OPA?” To this end, we evaluate the maximum secrecy rate of JSS and JSR for the general scenario of independent but not necessarily identically distributed fading with distinct average signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) in the first hop, the second hop, and the wiretap link. We demonstrate that the strong first and second hops equally benefit the secrecy rates of JSS and JSR, when the wiretap link is weak. When the wiretap link is strong, the secrecy rate of JSR is superior to JSS.

We examine the impact of multiple primary receivers on cognitive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) relay networks with underlay spectrum sharing. For such a network, we propose transmit antenna selection with receive maximal-ratio combining (TAS/MRC) as an interference-aware design to satisfy the power constraints in the primary and secondary networks. To demonstrate this, we derive new closed-form expressions for the exact and asymptotic outage probability with TAS/MRC and decode-and-forward (DF) relaying over independent Nakagami-m fading channels in the primary and secondary networks. Several important design insights are reached. We find that the TAS/MRC strategy achieves a full diversity gain when the transmit power in the secondary network is proportional to the peak interference power in the primary network. Furthermore, we highlight that the diversity-multiplexing tradeoff (DMT) of TAS/MRC is independent of the primary network and entirely dependent on the secondary network.

We propose transmit antenna selection (TAS) with decode-and-forward relaying as an effective approach to reduce interference in cognitive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) relay networks. To demonstrate this, we derive new closed-form expressions for the exact and asymptotic outage probability of TAS/MRC with multiple antennas at the primary and secondary users. We consider underlay spectrum sharing where the secondary users (SUs) transmit in the presence of multiple primary users (PUs). We consider independent Nakagami-m fading in both the primary and secondary networks. Several important design insights are revealed. We find that TAS/MRC achieves a full diversity when the transmit power at the SUs is proportional to the peak interference power at the PUs. Furthermore, we highlight that this diversity gain is completely independent of the number of antennas at the PUs.

We propose and analyze transmit antenna selection (TAS) to enhance physical layer security in a wiretap channel with NAantennas at the transmitter, NBantennas at the receiver, and NEantennas at the eavesdropper. We focus on the practical scenario where the transmitter does not have any channel state information (CSI) of the eavesdropper's channel. The transmitter selects a single antenna that maximizes the instantaneous signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the receiver. The receiver and the eavesdropper employ either maximal-ratio combining (MRC) or selection combining (SC) to combine the received signals. For the proposed protocols, we derive new closed-form expressions for the probability of non-zero secrecy capacity. We consider Nakagami-m fading with non-identical fading parameters of the main channel, mB, and of the eavesdropper's channel, mE. Next, we derive new closed-form expressions for the exact secrecy outage probability, based on which the ε-outage secrecy capacity is characterized. Based on the exact expressions, we derive the asymptotic secrecy outage probability which accurately reveals the secrecy diversity order and the secrecy array gain. We confirm that the proposed protocols achieve identical secrecy diversity orders of NANBmB. An interesting conclusion is reached that this diversity order is independent of NEand mE. Furthermore, we prove that under the proposed protocols, the secrecy outage probability and the ε-outage secrecy capacity improve with increasing NA.

We analyze the impact of antenna correlation on secrecy performance of multiple-input multiple-output wiretap channels where transmitter employs transmit antenna selection while receiver and eavesdropper perform maximal-ratio combining with arbitrary correlation. New closed-form expressions are derived for the exact and asymptotic (high signal-to-noise ratio in transmitter-receiver channel) secrecy outage probability.

This paper proposes a new opportunistic decode-and-forward (DF) relaying with beamforming in multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) multiple relay networks. In the proposed scheme, only one relay which correctly decodes the signal from the source and has the best channel to the destination is selected. To examine the benefits of our proposed scheme in two-wave with diffuse power (TWDP) fading channels, we first derive a closed-form expression for the exact outage probability. We then derive a tight lower bound on the exact result to allow for a convenient and accurate approximation. Furthermore, we derive the asymptotic outage probability to gain valuable insights into the network behavior in the high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regime. We demonstrate that the diversity order is equal to the product of two parameters: 1) the number of relays and 2) the minimum number of antennas at the source and the destination. Notably, this diversity order is independent of TWDP fading parameters. The accuracy of our analytical results is validated via Monte Carlo simulations.

We propose and analyze transmit antenna selection (TAS) to enhance physical layer security in a wiretap channel with multiple antennas at the transmitter, the receiver, and the eavesdropper. We consider the practical scenario of passive eavesdropping, where the transmitter does not have any channel state information (CSI) of the eavesdropper's channel. In the main channel between the transmitter and the receiver, we select a single antenna at the transmitter that maximizes the instantaneous signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the receiver. At the receiver and the eavesdropper, we consider two combining techniques: 1) maximal-ratio combining (MRC) and 2) selection combining (SC). For non-identical Rayleigh fading between the main channel and the eavesdropper's channel, we first derive new closed-form expressions for the exact and asymptotic secrecy outage probabilities. The asymptotic results accurately reveal the secrecy diversity order and the secrecy array gain. Next, we derive new closed-form expressions for the probability of positive secrecy and characterize the ε-outage secrecy capacity. We show that, under TAS/MRC and TAS/SC protocols, the secrecy outage probability approaches zero and the ε-outage secrecy capacity increases with increasing number of transmitter antennas.

This paper investigates the outage performance of dual-hop decode-and-forward (DF) cooperative spectrum sharing systems in the presence of multiple primary user (PU) receivers and multiple secondary user (SU) destinations. Our analysis allows for a general Nakagami-m fading environment where distinct fading parameters as well as unequal average fading powers between the interference and relaying links are assumed. Focusing on the cooperation process among the SU nodes and making use of the underlay cognitive approach, an exact closed-form expression for the outage probability is derived. Our analysis employs an opportunistic scheduling algorithm for selecting one out of L SU destinations available. Additional interference constraints are also considered due to the presence of multiple PU receivers. The effects of fading severity, SU relay placement, and number of PU receivers, and SU destinations on the end-to-end system performance are examined through some representative numerical plots. Monte Carlo simulation results are presented to corroborate the proposed analysis.

We examine transmit antenna selection with receiver maximal-ratio combining (TAS/MRC) and transmit antenna selection with receiver selection combining (TAS/SC) in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) relay networks. Amongst L two-hop relay links, a single relay offering the highest end-to-end signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is activated. Assuming independent non-identically distributed Weibull fading between the hops, new closed-form asymptotic expressions for the outage probability and the symbol error rate are derived considering NS, NR, and NDantennas at the source, the relays, and the destination, respectively. Based on such expressions, the diversity order and the array gain for M-ary phase shift keying and M-ary quadrature amplitude modulation are analyzed. We highlight that the diversity order of TAS/MRC is the same as TAS/SC. As such, we explicitly characterize the SNR gap between TAS/MRC and TAS/SC as the ratio of their respective array gains. An interesting observation is reached that for equal per-hop SNRs, the SNR gap between the two protocols is independent of L.

We propose and analyze two MIMO protocols with analog network coding (ANC) in two-way amplify-and-forward (AF) relaying where multi-antenna nodes communicate via a single antenna relay. Specifically, we present a new framework for the comparative analysis of beamforming and antenna selection in two-way relaying with non-identical Rayleigh fading between the hops. To facilitate the comparison, we derive new closed-form expressions for the exact and asymptotic sum symbol error rate (SSER). We show that beamforming and antenna selection offer the same diversity order of min{NA, NB}, where NA and NB are the number of antennas at the two nodes. We proceed to characterize the fundamental difference between the two protocols in terms of their array gains. A pivotal conclusion is reached that when either of the two nodes is equipped with a single antenna, antenna selection provides identical performance to beamforming at medium and high signal-to-noise ratios without the added hardware and signaling overhead.

We examine the impact of multiple primary transmitters and receivers (PU-TxRx) on the outage performance of cognitive decode-and-forward relay networks. In such a joint relaying/spectrum-sharing arrangement, we address fundamental questions concerning three key power constraints: 1) maximum transmit power at the secondary transmitter (SU-Tx), 2) peak interference power at the primary receivers (PU-Rx), and 3) interference power at SU-Rx caused by the primary transmitter (PU-Tx). Our answers to these are given in new analytical expressions for the exact and asymptotic outage probability of the secondary relay network. Based on our asymptotic expressions, important design insights into the impact of primary transceivers on the performance of cognitive relay networks is reached. We have shown that zero diversity order is attained when the peak interference power at the PU-Rx is independent of the maximum transmit power at the SU-Tx.

This paper analyzes the performance of cooperative relay networks using adaptive decode-and-forward (DF) relaying in two-wave with diffuse power (TWDP) fading channels. Among the multiple parallel relays that participate in transmission, only the relays that successfully decode the source message retransmit the signals to the destination. At the destination, the direct signals from the source and the indirect signals via the relays are combined using maximal-ratio combining (MRC). We first derive a new closed-form expression for the outage probability, which encompasses the Rayleigh fading and Rician fading as special cases. We then derive a tight lower bound on the outage probability to reduce computational complexity. The correctness of our derivation is validated through Monte Carlo simulations. It is shown that increasing the number of relays decreases the outage probability at high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), but increases the outage probability at low to medium SNR.

This paper proposes a low complexity protocol that preserves full diversity in multiuser amplify-and-forward relay networks with NSantennas at the source, NRantennas at the relay, and NDantennas at each of the K destinations. In the proposed protocol, a two-fold diversity is guaranteed: 1) multi-antenna diversity via transmit antenna selection with maximal-ratio combining (TAS/MRC), and 2) multiuser diversity via opportunistic scheduling. Under perfect feedback with precise channel state information (CSI), we derive new exact and asymptotic symbol error rate (SER) expressions in closed-form for the general case of Nakagami-m fading. We prove that the full diversity order of NSNDKmX+ min{NSNRmY, NRNDKmZ} is guaranteed, where mX, mY, and mZdenote the fading parameters of the source-destination, source-relay, and relay-destination links, respectively. To examine the impact of delayed feedback, we next derive new exact and asymptotic SER expressions in closed-form. We prove that in the presence of delayed feedback, outdated CSI degrades the diversity order to NDmX+ min{NRmY, NDmZ}. In addition, based on our asymptotic expressions, we determine the optimal power allocation between the source and the relay such that the SER is minimized. We show that optimal power allocation offers superior performance over uniform power allocation; highlighting a pivotal design choice for maximizing network performance without investing additional resources.

We analyze the symbol error rate (SER) of selective decode-and-forward (DF) relaying for the practical case of independent but not necessarily identically distributed two-wave with diffuse power (TWDP) fading. We first derive new exact SER expressions with M-ary phase-shift keying and M-ary quadrature amplitude modulation. We then derive tight upper bounds on the exact SER in closed form to avoid the numerical integration involved in the exact results. Furthermore, we derive concise yet valuable expressions for the asymptotic SER, which characterizes the system behavior in the high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regime in terms of the diversity order and the coding gain. Based on the asymptotic SER, we confirm that TWDP fading parameters have no impact on the diversity order, but affect the coding gain. We also demonstrate that the contribution of the source-destination link to the SER is higher than that of the source-relay link or the relay-destination link. Our analytical results are valid for general operating scenarios with arbitrary average SNRs and distinct TWDP fading parameters in each hop.

We propose cascaded transmit antenna selection with maximal-ratio combining (TAS/MRC) for use in multiuser relay networks (MRN) with NS, NR, and NDantennas at the source, the relay, and each of the K destinations, respectively. We consider opportunistic scheduling where the destination with the highest instantaneous end-to-end signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is scheduled for transmission. In cascaded TAS/MRC, a single transmit antenna that maximizes the instantaneous received SNR in each hop is selected, and all the receive antennas are MRC combined. We derive new exact closed-form statistics of the end-to-end SNR, from which we derive the exact and the approximate symbol error rate (SER) for M-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (M-QAM) and M-ary phase-shift keying (M-PSK). New concise expressions are derived to characterize the diversity order and the array gain. We highlight that our proposed scheme attains the maximum diversity order of NR× min{NS, NDK}. Furthermore, we determine the optimal power assignment at the source and the relay that minimizes the SER.

We propose transmit antenna selection with maximal-ratio combining (TAS/MRC) for use in multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) multiuser relay networks (MRN). The network under consideration is equipped with NS, NR, and NDantennas at the source, the relay, and each of the K destinations, respectively. For this network, the destination with the highest instantaneous end-to-end signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is scheduled for transmission. In each hop, a single transmit antenna that maximizes the post-processing SNR is selected, while all the receive antennas are MRC combined. We first derive new closed-form expressions for the outage probability and the symbol error rate (SER) for amplify-and-forward (AaF) relaying. Next, we present compact and easy-to-compute expressions for the diversity order and the array gain to provide practical insights into the network behavior. We highlight the fact that our proposed scheme attains the maximum diversity order of NR× min{NS,NDK}.

We propose opportunistic scheduling with cooperative selection diversity (CSD) in wireless multiuser relay networks (MRN). In this policy, the destination with the highest instantaneous end-to-end signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), either directly from the source or indirectly through the relay, is scheduled for transmission. For the practical case of unbalanced Nakagami-m fading channels, we derive new exact closed-form expressions for the outage probability and the symbol error rate (SER) for amplify-and-forward (AaF) relaying. Next, we quantify the asymptotic network behavior in the low SER regime by presenting concise expressions for the diversity order and the array gain. We demonstrate that our two-step policy achieves the maximum diversity order. We further prove that both the diversity order and the array gain are jointly influenced by the direct link and the weaker hop of the relay link.

Distributed transmit antenna selection with maximal-ratio combining (TAS/MRC) is proposed for use in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) multiuser relay networks (MRN), where NS, NR, and NDantennas are equipped at the source, the relay, and each of the K destinations, respectively. For such networks, the destination with the highest instantaneous end-to-end signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is scheduled for transmission. In each hop, a single transmit antenna that maximizes the post-processing SNR is selected, while all the receive antennas are MRC combined. New exact closed-form expressions are derived for the cumulative distribution function (CDF), the probability density function (PDF), and the moment generating function (MGF) of the highest instantaneous end-to-end SNR. Based on these, we determine the symbol error rate with M-ary phase-shift keying. Our derived results apply to general operating scenarios with arbitrary number of antennas, arbitrary number of destinations, and distinct average SNRs.

This letter advocates the performance of a multiuser relay network (MRN) equipped with a single amplify-and-forward (AaF) relay over Rayleigh fading environments. We derive new expressions for the cumulative distribution function (CDF) of the highest instantaneous end-to-end signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) taking into consideration the two cases of fixed gain relays and variable gain relays. Relying on these statistical results, we derive new expressions for the outage probability and symbol error rate (SER), both of which are obtained in exact closed form. Furthermore, we derive simple asymptotic outage probability and SER. Our asymptotic results confirm that opportunistic scheduling has no impact on the diversity order. We further prove that the array gain is what determines the SNR advantage of opportunistic scheduling over the single user scenario.

In this contribution, we propose an antenna selection scheme in dual-hop amplify-and-forward (AaF) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) relaying in Nakagami-m fading channels. In each hop, the transmit and receive antenna pair that maximizes the instantaneous signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the receiver is selected for transmission. We derive new closed-form expressions for the exact outage probability and the exact symbol error rate (SER), relying on the cumulative distribution function (CDF) of the instantaneous end-to-end SNR. Furthermore, we derive simple closed-form expressions for the asymptotic outage probability and the asymptotic SER, revealing the diversity order of the proposed scheme. Specifically, the diversity order is equal to the minimum of two parameters: first, the product of the number of source and relay antennas and the first hop fading parameter, and second, the product of the number of relay and destination antennas and the second hop fading parameter. Our derived results apply to general operating scenarios with distinct Nakagami-m fading parameters and average SNRs in each hop.

This paper analyzes the performance of wireless multiuser relay networks (MRN) in unbalanced Nakagami-m fading channels. For such networks, we consider a single channel state information (CSI)-based amplify-and-forward (AaF) relay. We derive a new exact expression for the symbol error rate (SER), which is in closed-form and applies to a wide variety of modulations. Subsequently we present a simplified asymptotic expression for the SER in the high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regime to identify key performance metrics such as the diversity order and array gain. Our asymptotic result explicitly reveals the direct relationship between the diversity order and both the number of destinations and the per-hop fading parameters. Moreover, we highlight the effect of the number of destinations on the optimal relay location aiming at minimizing the SER. The validity of our analysis is substantiated by numerical results.

To improve the throughput performance without feedback channel, a partial cooperation scheme based on fountain codes is proposed in this paper. Compared with the incremental relaying where the signal is retransmitted in fixed or selective relay and fed back to the source from the destination, the proposed scheme only requires the partner to offer partial encoded packets in collaborative phase. Simulation results show that throughput performance of the proposed scheme outperforms that of incremental relaying, which has ever been considered as the optimal scheme in three-terminal cooperative communications system with the partial cooperation parameter around 0.1 in our simulation. In particular, the proposed scheme allows for an easy extension to multiple partners.

This paper advocates the performance of wireless multiuser relay networks (MRNs) equipped with a single amplify-and-forward (AaF) relay. For such networks, we focus on opportunistic scheduling, in which the destination with the highest instantaneous end-to-end signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is scheduled for transmission. The scheduled destination can receive either directly from the source or indirectly through the relay, based on cooperative selection diversity (CSD). Assuming Rayleigh fading channels, we first derive a new expression for the cumulative distribution function (CDF) of the received instantaneous end-to-end SNR. Then, relying on this statistical result, we present new exact expressions for the outage probability and symbol error rate (SER), both of which are obtained in closed-form. Furthermore, we derive simple yet valuable closed-form asymptotic expressions for the outage probability and SER in the high SNR regime. Our results explicitly reveal the impacts of CSD and opportunistic scheduling on the diversity order and array gain. Numerical results are presented to validate the analysis.

In this paper, we consider the performance of downlink multiuser relay networks (MRN) equipped with a single amplify-and-forward (AaF) relay. We present exact analysis in closed-form for the outage probability of MRN with channel state information (CSI)-based gain relaying in Nakagami-m fading channels. In doing so, we derived a new expression for the cumulative distribution function (CDF) of the highest end-to-end signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) associated with the strongest destination terminal. We demonstrate the impact of the fading severity m and the number of destination terminals on the system performance in unbalanced fading conditions. Numerical results substantiate the validity of our analysis.