Relaying in the Internet of Things (IoT): A Survey

The deployment of relays between Internet of Things (IoT) end devices and gateways can improve link quality. In cellular-based IoT, relays have the potential to reduce base station overload. The energy expended in single-hop long-range communication can be reduced if relays listen to transmissions of end devices and forward these observations to gateways. However, incorporating relays into IoT networks faces some challenges. IoT end devices are designed primarily for uplink communication of small-sized observations toward the network; hence, opportunistically using end devices as relays needs a redesign of both the medium access control (MAC) layer protocol of such end devices and possible addition of new communication interfaces. Additionally, the wake-up time of IoT end devices needs to be synchronized with that of the relays. For cellular-based IoT, the possibility of using infrastructure relays exists, and noncellular IoT networks can leverage the presence of mobile devices for relaying, for example, in remote healthcare. However, the latter presents problems of incentivizing relay participation and managing the mobility of relays. Furthermore, although relays can increase the lifetime of IoT networks, deploying relays implies the need for additional batteries to power them. This can erode the energy efficiency gain that relays offer. Therefore, designing relay-assisted IoT networks that provide acceptable trade-offs is key, and this goes beyond adding an extra transmit RF chain to a relay-enabled IoT end device. There has been increasing research interest in IoT relaying, as demonstrated in the available literature. Works that consider these issues are surveyed in this paper to provide insight into the state of the art, provide design insights for network designers and motivate future research directions

Relay assisted device-to-device communication with channel uncertainty

The gains of direct communication between user equipment in a network may not be fully realised due to the separation between the user equipment and due to the fading that the channel between these user equipment experiences. In order to fully realise the gains that direct (device-to-device) communication promises, idle user equipment can be exploited to serve as relays to enforce device-to-device communication. The availability of potential relay user equipment creates a problem: a way to select the relay user equipment. Moreover, unlike infrastructure relays, user equipment are carried around by people and these users are self-interested. Thus the problem of relay selection goes beyond choosing which device to assist in relayed communication but catering for user self-interest. Another problem in wireless communication is the unavailability of perfect channel state information. This reality creates uncertainty in the channel and so in designing selection algorithms, channel uncertainty awareness needs to be a consideration. Therefore the work in this thesis considers the design of relay user equipment selection algorithms that are not only device centric but that are relay user equipment centric. Furthermore, the designed algorithms are channel uncertainty aware. Firstly, a stable matching based relay user equipment selection algorithm is put forward for underlay device-to-device communication. A channel uncertainty aware approach is proposed to cater to imperfect channel state information at the devices. The algorithm is combined with a rate based mode selection algorithm. Next, to cater to the queue state at the relay user equipment, a cross-layer selection algorithm is proposed for a twoway decode and forward relay set up. The algorithm proposed employs deterministic uncertainty constraint in the interference channel, solving the selection algorithm in a heuristic fashion. Then a cluster head selection algorithm is proposed for device-to-device group communication constrained by channel uncertainty in the interference channel. The formulated rate maximization problem is solved for deterministic and probabilistic constraint scenarios, and the problem extended to a multiple-input single-out scenario for which robust beamforming was designed. Finally, relay utility and social distance based selection algorithms are proposed for full duplex decode and forward device-to-device communication set up. A worst-case approach is proposed for a full channel uncertainty scenario. The results from computer simulations indicate that the proposed algorithms offer spectral efficiency, fairness and energy efficiency gains. The results also showed clearly the deterioration in the performance of networks when perfect channel state information is assumed

Secrecy Enhancement in Cooperative Relaying Systems

Cooperative communications is obviously an evolution in wireless networks due to its noticeable advantages such as increasing the coverage as well as combating fading and shadowing effects. However, the broadcast characteristic of a wireless medium which is exploited in cooperative communications leads to a variety of security vulnerabilities. As cooperative communication networks are globally expanded, they expose to security attacks and threats more than ever. Primarily, researchers have focused on upper layers of network architectures to meet the requirements for secure cooperative transmission while the upper-layer security solutions are incapable of combating a number of security threats, e.g., jamming attacks. To address this issue, physical-layer security has been recommended as a complementary solution in the literature. In this thesis, physical layer attacks of the cooperative communication systems are studied, and corresponding security techniques including cooperative jamming, beamforming and diversity approaches are investigated. In addition, a novel security solution for a two-hop decode-and-forward relaying system is presented where the transmitters insert a random phase shift to the modulated data of each hop. The random phase shift is created based on a shared secret among communicating entities. Thus, the injected phase shift confuses the eavesdropper and secrecy capacity improves. Furthermore, a cooperative jamming strategy for multi-hop decode-and-forward relaying systems is presented where multiple non-colluding illegitimate nodes can overhear the communication. The jamming signal is created by the transmitter of each hop while being sent with the primary signal. The jamming signal is known at the intended receiver as it is according to a secret common knowledge between the communicating entities. Hence, artificial noise misleads the eavesdroppers, and decreases their signal-to-noise-ratio. As a result, secrecy capacity of the system is improved. Finally, power allocation among friendly jamming and main signal is proposed to ensure that suggested scheme enhances secrecy