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.
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.
Here, the authors investigate robust secure transmission for wireless information and power transfer in heterogeneous networks (HeNets) under the deterministic and stochastic CSI errors, respectively, where one macrocell base station (MBS) and one femtocell base station (FBS) respectively serve to macrocell users (MUs) and femtocell users (FUs). Meanwhile, FUs acquire energy from the FBS and multiple eavesdroppers attempt to wiretap its downlink information. To secure the wireless information and power transfer, the authors propose an artificial noise (AN)‐aided transmission design. Under the deterministic CSI error, the authors jointly design the beamforming and AN vectors of the MBS and FBS to minimise the total transmit power, while satisfying the constraints on the signal‐to‐interference plus noise (SINR) requirement at each MU, energy harvesting (EH) and secrecy outage probability requirement at each FU. This formulated problem is non‐convex. Utilising S‐procedure and successive convex approximation technique, the authors successfully transfer it into a series of convex problems. Under the stochastic CSI error, the joint design problem is formulated with a range of outage probabilistic constraints. Further, the authors, respectively, resort to large deviation and Bernstein‐type inequalities, S‐procedure to convert it into solvable forms. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the authors’ proposed design.
In this paper, we investigate an artificial-noise-aided secure beamforming design for simultaneous wireless information and power transfer in a two-tier downlink heterogeneous cellular network, in which each energy receiver in a femtocell is seen as a potential eavesdropper to wiretap the confidential message intended for the information receiver. Our design objective is to maximize the secrecy rate at the information receiver, while satisfying the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio requirement of each macrouser and the energy harvesting and transmit power constraints. Both the scenarios of perfect and imperfect channel state information (CSI) are considered. With perfect CSI, the formulated optimization problem constitutes a difference of a convex function programming problem, which is hard to directly solve. To tackle this challenge, we transform it into a series of semidefinite programs by using successive convex approximation, and an iterative algorithm is proposed to arrive at a provably convergent solution. With imperfect CSI, we address robust secure beamforming relying on the worst-case design philosophy. To circumvent this predicament, we resort to the S-procedure to reformulate the robust quadratic matrix inequality (QMI) constraints and then obtain the linear matrix inequality representations for these QMIs. Numerical results are finally presented to demonstrate the performance of our proposed schemes in improving the secrecy rate of heterogeneous cellular networks.
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 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.
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.
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.