Joint Spatial and Spectrum Cooperation in Wireless Network.

PhDThe sky-rocketing growth of multimedia infotainment applications and broadband-hungry mobile devices exacerbate the stringent demand for ultra high data rate and more spectrum resources. Along with it, the unbalanced temporal and geographical variations of spectrum usage further inspires those spectral-efficient networks, namely, cognitive radio and heterogeneous cellular networks (HCNs). This thesis focuses on the system design and performance enhancement of cognitive radio (CR) and HCNs. Three different aspects of performance improvement are considered, including link reliability of cognitive radio networks (CNs), security enhancement of CNs, and energy efficiency improvement of CNs and HCNs. First, generalized selection combining (GSC) is proposed as an effective receiver design for interference reduction and reliability improvement of CNs with outdated CSI. A uni- ed way for deriving the distribution of received signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is developed in underlay spectrum sharing networks subject to interference from the primary trans- mitter (PU-Tx) to the secondary receiver (SU-Rx), maximum transmit power constraint at the secondary transmitter (SU-Tx), and peak interference power constraint at the PU receiver (PU-Rx), is developed. Second, transmit antenna selection with receive generalized selection combining (TAS/GSC) in multi-antenna relay-aided communica- tion is introduced in CNs under Rayleigh fading and Nakagami-m fading. Based on newly derived complex statistical properties of channel power gain of TAS/GSC, exact ergodic capacity and high SNR ergodic capacity are derived over Nakagami-m fading. Third, beamforming and arti cial noise generation (BF&AN) is introduced as a robust scheme to enhance the secure transmission of large-scale spectrum sharing networks with multiple randomly located eavesdroppers (Eves) modeled as homogeneous Poisson Point Process (PPP). Stochastic geometry is applied to model and analyze the impact of i BF&AN on this complex network. Optimal power allocation factor for BF&AN which maximizes the average secrecy rate is further studied under the outage probability con- straint of primary network. Fourth, a new wireless energy harvesting protocol is proposed for underlay cognitive relay networks with the energy-constrained SU-Txs. Exact and asymptotic outage probability, delay-sensitive throughput, and delay-tolerant through- put are derived to explore the tradeoff between the energy harvested from the PU-Txs and the interference caused by the PU-Txs. Fifth, a harvest-then-transmit protocol is proposed in K-tier HCNs with randomly located multiple-antenna base stations (BSs) and single antenna mobile terminals (MTs) modeled as homogeneous PPP. The average received power at MT, the uplink (UL) outage probability, and the UL average ergodic rate are derived to demonstrate the intrinsic relationship between the energy harvested from BSs in the downlink (DL) and the MT performance in the UL. Throughout the thesis, it is shown that link reliability, secrecy performance, and energy efficiency of CNs and HCNs can be signi cantly leveraged by taking advantage of multiple antennas, relays, and wireless energy harvesting

Physical-Layer Security in Cognitive Radio Networks

The fifth-generation (5G) communications and beyond are expected to serve a huge number of devices and services. However, due to the fixed spectrum allocation policies, the need for cognitive radio networks (CRNs) has increased accordingly. CRNs have been proposed as a promising approach to address the problem of under-utilization and scarcity of the spectrum. In CRNs, secondary users (SUs) access the licensed spectrum of the primary users (PUs) using underlay, overlay, or interweave paradigms. SUs can access the spectrum band simultaneously with the PUs in underlay access mode provided that the SUs’ transmission power does not cause interference to the PUs’ communication. In this case, SUs should keep monitoring the interference level that the PU receiver can tolerate and adjust the transmission power accordingly. However, varying the transmission power may lead to some threats to the privacy of the information transfer of CRNs. Therefore, securing data transmission in an underlay CRN is a challenge that should be addressed. Physical-layer security (PLS) has recently emerged as a reliable method to protect the confidentiality of the SUs’ transmission against attacks, especially for the underlay model with no need for sharing security keys. Indeed, PLS has the advantage of safeguarding the data transmission without the necessity of adding enormous additional resources, specifically when there are massively connected devices. Apart from the energy consumed by the various functions carried out by SUs, enhancing security consumes additional energy. Therefore, energy harvesting (EH) is adopted in our work to achieve both; energy efficiency and spectral efficiency. EH is a significant breakthrough for green communication, allowing the network nodes to reap energy from multiple sources to lengthen battery life. The energy from various sources, such as solar, wind, vibration, and radio frequency (RF) signals, can be obtained through the process of EH. This accumulated energy can be stored to be used for various processes, such as improving the users’ privacy and prolonging the energy-constrained devices’ battery life. In this thesis, for the purpose of realistic modelling of signal transmission, we explicitly assume scenarios involving moving vehicles or nodes in networks that are densely surrounded by obstacles. Hence, we begin our investigations by studying the link performance under the impact of cascaded κ−μ fading channels. Moreover, using the approach of PLS, we address the privacy of several three-node wiretap system models, in which there are two legitimate devices communicating under the threat of eavesdroppers. We begin by a three-node wiretap system model operating over cascaded κ − μ fading channels and under worst-case assumptions. Moreover, assuming cascaded κ − μ distributions for all the links, we investigate the impact of these cascade levels, as well as the impact of multiple antennas employed at the eavesdropper on security. Additionally, the PLS is examined for two distinct eavesdropping scenarios: colluding and non-colluding eavesdroppers. Throughout the thesis, PLS is mainly evaluated through the secrecy outage probability (SOP), the probability of non-zero secrecy capacity (Pnzcr ), and the intercept probability (Pint). Considering an underlay CRN operating over cascaded Rayleigh fading channel, with the presence of an eavesdropper, we explore the PLS for SUs in the network. This study is then extended to investigate the PLS of SUs in an underlay single-input-multiple-output (SIMO) CRN over cascaded κ-μ general fading channels with the presence of a multi-antenna eavesdropper. The impact of the constraint over the transmission power of the SU transmitter due to the underlay access mode is investigated. In addition, the effects of multiple antennas and cascade levels over security are well-explored. In the second part of our thesis, we propose an underlay CRN, in which an SU transmitter communicates with an SU destination over cascaded κ-μ channels. The confidentiality of the shared information between SUs is threatened by an eavesdropper. Our major objective is to achieve a secured network, while at the same time improving the energy and spectrum efficiencies with practical modeling for signals’ propagation. Hence, we presume that the SU destination harvests energy from the SU transmitter. The harvested energy is used to produce jamming signals to be transmitted to mislead the eavesdropper. In this scenario, a comparison is made between an energy-harvesting eavesdropper and a non-energy harvesting one. Additionally, we present another scenario in which cooperative jamming is utilized as one of the means to boost security. In this system model, the users are assumed to communicate over cascaded Rayleigh channels. Moreover, two scenarios for the tapping capabilities of the eavesdroppers are presented; colluding and non-colluding eavesdroppers. This study is then extended for the case of non-colluding eavesdroppers, operating over cascaded κ-μ channels. Finally, we investigate the reliability of the SUs and PUs while accessing the licensed bands using the overlay mode, while enhancing the energy efficiency via EH techniques. Hence, we assume that multiple SUs are randomly distributed, in which one of the SUs is selected to harvest energy from the PUs’ messages. Then, utilizing the gathered energy, this SU combines its own messages with the amplified PUs messages and forwards them to the destinations. Furthermore, we develop two optimization problems with the potential of maximizing the secondary users’ rate and the sum rate of both networks

Simultaneous Wireless Information and Power Transfer Based on Generalized Triangular Decomposition

The rapidly growing number of wireless devices has raised the need for designing self-sustained wireless systems. Simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) has been advocated as a promising solution. Various approaches have emerged to design wireless systems that enable SWIPT. In this thesis, we propose a novel approach for spatial switching (SS) based SWIPT using the generalized triangular decomposition (GTD) for point-to-point multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) systems. The GTD structure allows the transmitter to use the highest gain subchannels jointly for energy and information transmissions and these joint transmissions can be separated at the receiver. We first derive the optimal GTD structure to attain optimal performance in SS based SWIPT systems. This structure is then extended to design three novel transceivers where each transceiver achieves a certain objective and meets specific constraints. The first transceiver focuses on minimizing the total transmitted power while satisfying the energy harvesting and data rate constraints at the receiver. The second transceiver targets the data rate maximization while meeting a certain amount of energy at the receiver. The third transceiver considers the energy harvesting maximization and guarantees to satisfy the required data rate constraint. The proposed transceivers are designed assuming two transmitted power constraints at the transmitter; the instantaneous total transmit power and the limited transmit power per subchannel. For each designed transceiver, optimal and/or suboptimal solutions are developed to obtain joint power allocation and subchannel assignment under a linear energy harvesting model. Additionally, a novel extension to the SS based SWIPT system is proposed considering a non-linear energy harvesting model. Thereafter, the case of maximizing the energy harvesting for a given data rate and instantaneous total transmitted power constraints is studied. A solution is developed that obtains jointly the optimal power allocation and the subchannel assignment alongside the optimal and/or suboptimal split ratios at the energy harvesters. The theoretical and simulation results show that our novel proposed GTD designs for both linear and non-linear energy harvesting models outperform the state-of-the-art singular value decomposition (SVD) based SWIPT designs