Secrecy Performance with Optimal Relay and Antenna Selection in Spectrum-Sharing Networks

Abstract

This paper investigates the physical layer secrecy performance for an underlay wiretap spectrum sharing network with optimal relay and antenna selection (ORAS). It jointly selects a transmit antenna at a secondary source, a receive antenna at its destination, and a relay between them to maximize the secrecy rate at the destination under a passive eavesdropping scenario. We derive novel, exact expressions for secrecy outage probability (SOP) and secrecy throughput (ST) in a single integral-form. We also provide their accurate approximations in closed-form. Considering three distinct scenarios depending on whether the main link is stronger than the wiretap link and the nature of the primary interference constraint, we obtain different useful system design insights. Under a proportional interference constraint, secrecy diversity gain is achieved only when the main link is stronger than the wiretap link, otherwise the diversity gain is lost and leads to an SOP floor. Under a fixed interference constraint, the SOP floor is further increased. Through numerical results, we show the impact of different signal combining strategies by the eavesdropper on the SOP and ST. We also illustrate the efficacy of the ORAS scheme as compared to other relay and antenna selection schemes.