In this paper, we pioneer the study of physical-layer security in heterogeneous networks (HetNets). We investigate secure communications in a two-tier downlink HetNet, which comprises one macrocell and several femtocells. Each cell has multiple users and an eavesdropper attempts to wiretap the intended macrocell user. First, we consider an orthogonal spectrum allocation strategy to eliminate co-channel interference, and propose the secrecy transmit beamforming only operating in the macrocell (STB-OM) as a partial solution for secure communication in HetNet. Next, we consider a secrecy-oriented non-orthogonal spectrum allocation strategy and propose two cooperative STBs which rely on the collaboration amongst the macrocell base station (MBS) and the adjacent femtocell base stations (FBSs). Our first cooperative STB is the STB sequentially operating in the macrocell and femtocells (STB-SMF), where the cooperative FBSs individually design their STB matrices and then feed their performance metrics to the MBS for guiding the STB in the macrocell. Aiming to improve the performance of STB-SMF, we further propose the STB jointly designed in the macrocell and femtocells (STB-JMF), where all cooperative FBSs feed channel state information to the MBS for designing the joint STB. Unlike conventional STBs conceived for broadcasting or interference channels, the three proposed STB schemes all entail relatively sophisticated optimizations due to QoS constraints of the legitimate users. To efficiently use these STB schemes, the original optimization problems are reformulated and convex optimization techniques, such as second-order cone programming and semidefinite programming, are invoked to obtain the optimal solutions. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed STB schemes are highly effective in improving the secrecy rate performance of HetNet.
In this paper, we pioneer the study of physical-layer security in heterogeneous networks (HetNets). We investigate secure communications in a two-tier downlink HetNet, which comprises one macrocell and several femtocells. Each cell has multiple users and an eavesdropper attempts to wiretap the intended macrocell user. First, we consider an orthogonal spectrum allocation strategy to eliminate co-channel interference, and propose the secrecy transmit beamforming only operating in the macrocell (STB-OM) as a partial solution for secure communication in HetNet. Next, we consider a secrecy-oriented non-orthogonal spectrum allocation strategy and propose two cooperative STBs which rely on the collaboration amongst the macrocell base station (MBS) and the adjacent femtocell base stations (FBSs). Our first cooperative STB is the STB sequentially operating in the macrocell and femtocells (STB-SMF), where the cooperative FBSs individually design their STB matrices and then feed their performance metrics to the MBS for guiding the STB in the macrocell. Aiming to improve the performance of STB-SMF, we further propose the STB jointly designed in the macrocell and femtocells (STB-JMF), where all cooperative FBSs feed channel state information to the MBS for designing the joint STB. Unlike conventional STBs conceived for broadcasting or interference channels, the three proposed STB schemes all entail relatively sophisticated optimizations due to QoS constraints of the legitimate users. To efficiently use these STB schemes, the original optimization problems are reformulated and convex optimization techniques, such as second-order cone programming and semidefinite programming, are invoked to obtain the optimal solutions. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed STB schemes are highly effective in improving the secrecy rate performance of HetNet.
In this paper, we investigate secure communication with the presence of multiple eavesdroppers (Eves) in a two-tier downlink dense heterogeneous network, wherein there is a macrocell base station (MBS) and multiple femtocell base stations (FBSs).Each base station (BS) has multiple users.And Eves attempt to wiretap a macrocell user (MU).To keep Eves ignorant of the confidential message, we propose a physical-layer security scheme based on cross-layer cooperation to exploit interference in the considered network.Under the constraints on the quality of service (QoS) of other legitimate users and transmit power, the secrecy rate of system can be maximized through jointly optimizing the beamforming vectors of MBS and cooperative FBSs.We explore the problem of maximizing secrecy rate in both non-colluding and colluding Eves scenarios, respectively.Firstly, in non-colluding Eves scenario, we approximate the original non-convex problem into a few semi-definite programs (SDPs) by employing the semi-definite relaxation (SDR) technique and conservative convex approximation under perfect channel state information (CSI) case.Furthermore, we extend the frame to imperfect CSI case and use the Lagrangian dual theory to cope with uncertain constraints on CSI.Secondly, in colluding Eves scenario, we transform the original problem into a two-tier optimization problem equivalently.Among them, the outer layer problem is a single variable optimization problem and can be solved by one-dimensional linear search.While the inner-layer optimization problem is transformed into a convex SDP problem with SDR technique and Charnes-Cooper transformation.In the perfect CSI case of both non-colluding and colluding Eves scenarios, we prove that the relaxation of SDR is tight and analyze the complexity of proposed algorithms.Finally, simulation results validate the effectiveness and robustness of proposed scheme.
In this paper, we investigate secure simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) in a two-tier downlink heterogeneous network (HetNet), wherein the ambient interference signals are exploited for both secure communications and wireless energy harvesting. We assume one macrocell base station (MBS) and several femtocell base stations (FBSs) simultaneously send information to their macrocell users (MUs) and femtocell users, respectively. Meanwhile, the FBSs also transfer energy to some energy receivers, who act as the potential eavesdroppers and are able to wiretap the confidential messages to one MU via the cross-tier interference links. Exploiting interference in the considered HetNet, we jointly optimize the beamforming vectors and artificial noise of the MBS and the FBSs to maximize the secrecy rate of the eavesdropped MU under the quality-of-service, energy harvesting, and transmit power constraints at relevant receivers/transmitters. In particular, we first investigate the ideal case with perfect eavesdropper's channel state information (ECSI) and the optimization problem turns out to be nonconvex. By using the tools of semidefinite relaxation (SDR) and one-dimensional line search, we successfully transfer the original problem into a more tractable two-stage problem to obtain the optimal solution. Furthermore, we extend our study to the imperfect ECSI case, where the worst-case based solution is obtained with the aid of SDR and successive convex approximation. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms and also bring useful insights into the design of secure SWIPT in the presence of interference.
The new paradigm of wirelessly powered two-tier heterogeneous networks (HetNets) is considered in this paper. Specifically, the femtocell base station (FBS) is powered by a power beacon (PB) and transmits confidential information to a legitimate femtocell user (FU) in the presence of a potential eavesdropper (EVE) and a macro base station (MBS). In this scenario, we investigate the secrecy beamforming design under three different levels of FBS-EVE channel state information (CSI), namely, the perfect, imperfect and completely unknown FBS-EVE CSI. Firstly, given the perfect global CSI at the FBS, the PB energy covariance matrix, the FBS information covariance matrix and the time splitting factor are jointly optimized aiming for perfect secrecy rate maximization. Upon assuming the imperfect FBS-EVE CSI, the worst-case and outage-constrained SRM problems corresponding to deterministic and statistical CSI errors are investigated, respectively. Furthermore, considering the more realistic case of unknown FBS-EVE CSI, the artificial noise (AN) aided secrecy beamforming design is studied. Our analysis reveals that for all above cases both the optimal PB energy and FBS information secrecy beamformings are of rank-1. Moreover, for all considered cases of FBS-EVE CSI, the closed-form PB energy beamforming solutions are available when the cross-tier interference constraint is inactive. Numerical simulation results demonstrate the secrecy performance advantages of all proposed secrecy beamforming designs compared to the adopted baseline algorithms.
A femtocell network which is supported by a macrocell base station and some femtocell base stations provides more reliable transmission, higher wireless capacity, and broader coverage. However, it may face eavesdropping risk, which provides an eavesdropper with a chance to overhear a macrocell user's confidential information. In this paper, we study a secrecy transmission problem for a downlink two-tier femtocell network with imperfect channel state information (CSI), where an eavesdropper wiretaps the legitimate macrocell user. More specifically, we aim to maximize the secrecy rate by jointly optimizing the power allocation and quality-of-service (QoS) requirement in terms of outage probability. We consider two types of CSI, i.e., instantaneous and statistic CSI, respectively, which can robustly guarantee the QoS of users in a complex communication environment. For the instantaneous CSI communication environment, where there exist estimated errors between instantaneous channel gains and their estimated values, we propose a novel conversion method to extract the approximate closed-form expressions of outage probability constraints. For the statistic CSI communication environment, where channel gains obey Rayleigh fading, we design a new method to obtain deterministic expressions by considering the expectations and variances of instantaneous channel gains. Then, the uncertainty and non-convexity of objective function are solved with the aid of variable substitution and Taylor expansion. Moreover, two iterative algorithms are proposed to derive the optimal transmission powers. Finally, we evaluate the proposed algorithms using large scale simulations, and present extensive evaluation results to demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed algorithms.
In this paper, we study the physical layer security in a two-tier heterogeneous wireless sensor networks (HWSN) based on simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) approach. Joint optimization problem of the transmit beamforming vector at the macrocell and femtocell, the artificial noise (AN) vector, and the power splitting ratio is modeled to maximize the minimal secrecy capacity of the wiretapped macrocell sensor nodes while considering the fairness among multiple M-SNs. In order to reduce the performance loss of the rank relaxation, we apply successive convex approximation (SCA) technique, first-order Taylor series expansion and sequential parametric convex approximation approach to transform the max-min program to a second order cone programming (SOCP) problem to iterate to a near-optimal solution. In addition, a novel SCA-based iterative algorithm is proposed while its convergence property is proved. The simulation shows that our SCA-based method outperforms the conventional methods.
In this paper, we investigate the physical layer security in a two-tier heterogeneous wireless sensor network (HWSN) depending on simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) approach for multiuser multiple-input multiple-output wiretap channels with artificial noise (AN) transmission, where a more general system framework of HWSN only includes a macrocell and a femtocell. For the sake of implementing security enhancement and green communications, the joint optimization problem of the secure beamforming vector at the macrocell and femtocell, the AN vector, and the power splitting ratio is modeled to maximize the minimal secrecy capacity of the wiretapped macrocell sensor nodes (M-SNs) while considering the fairness among multiple M-SNs. To reduce the performance loss of the rank relaxation from the SDR technique while solving the non-convex max–min program, we apply successive convex approximation (SCA) technique, first-order Taylor series expansion and sequential parametric convex approximation (SPCA) approach to transform the max–min program to a second order cone programming (SOCP) problem to iterate to a near-optimal solution. In addition, we propose a novel SCA-SPCA-based iterative algorithm while its convergence property is proved. The simulation shows that our SCA-SPCA-based method outperforms the conventional methods.