Enhancing Physical Layer Security in AF Relay Assisted Multi-Carrier Wireless Transmission

In this paper, we study the physical layer security (PLS) problem in the dual hop orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) based wireless communication system. First, we consider a single user single relay system and study a joint power optimization problem at the source and relay subject to individual power constraint at the two nodes. The aim is to maximize the end to end secrecy rate with optimal power allocation over different sub-carriers. Later, we consider a more general multi-user multi-relay scenario. Under high SNR approximation for end to end secrecy rate, an optimization problem is formulated to jointly optimize power allocation at the BS, the relay selection, sub-carrier assignment to users and the power loading at each of the relaying node. The target is to maximize the overall security of the system subject to independent power budget limits at each transmitting node and the OFDMA based exclusive sub-carrier allocation constraints. A joint optimization solution is obtained through duality theory. Dual decomposition allows to exploit convex optimization techniques to find the power loading at the source and relay nodes. Further, an optimization for power loading at relaying nodes along with relay selection and sub carrier assignment for the fixed power allocation at the BS is also studied. Lastly, a sub-optimal scheme that explores joint power allocation at all transmitting nodes for the fixed subcarrier allocation and relay assignment is investigated. Finally, simulation results are presented to validate the performance of the proposed schemes.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, accepted in Transactions on Emerging Telecommunications Technologies (ETT), formerly known as European Transactions on Telecommunications (ETT

QoS Constrained Optimal Sink and Relay Placement in Planned Wireless Sensor Networks

We are given a set of sensors at given locations, a set of potential locations for placing base stations (BSs, or sinks), and another set of potential locations for placing wireless relay nodes. There is a cost for placing a BS and a cost for placing a relay. The problem we consider is to select a set of BS locations, a set of relay locations, and an association of sensor nodes with the selected BS locations, so that number of hops in the path from each sensor to its BS is bounded by hmax, and among all such feasible networks, the cost of the selected network is the minimum. The hop count bound suffices to ensure a certain probability of the data being delivered to the BS within a given maximum delay under a light traffic model. We observe that the problem is NP-Hard, and is hard to even approximate within a constant factor. For this problem, we propose a polynomial time approximation algorithm (SmartSelect) based on a relay placement algorithm proposed in our earlier work, along with a modification of the greedy algorithm for weighted set cover. We have analyzed the worst case approximation guarantee for this algorithm. We have also proposed a polynomial time heuristic to improve upon the solution provided by SmartSelect. Our numerical results demonstrate that the algorithms provide good quality solutions using very little computation time in various randomly generated network scenarios

Markov Decision Processes with Applications in Wireless Sensor Networks: A Survey

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) consist of autonomous and resource-limited devices. The devices cooperate to monitor one or more physical phenomena within an area of interest. WSNs operate as stochastic systems because of randomness in the monitored environments. For long service time and low maintenance cost, WSNs require adaptive and robust methods to address data exchange, topology formulation, resource and power optimization, sensing coverage and object detection, and security challenges. In these problems, sensor nodes are to make optimized decisions from a set of accessible strategies to achieve design goals. This survey reviews numerous applications of the Markov decision process (MDP) framework, a powerful decision-making tool to develop adaptive algorithms and protocols for WSNs. Furthermore, various solution methods are discussed and compared to serve as a guide for using MDPs in WSNs

An Approximate Inner Bound to the QoS Aware Throughput Region of a Tree Network under IEEE 802.15.4 CSMA/CA and Application to Wireless Sensor Network Design

We consider a tree network spanning a set of source nodes that generate measurement packets, a set of additional relay nodes that only forward packets from the sources, and a data sink. We assume that the paths from the sources to the sink have bounded hop count. We assume that the nodes use the IEEE 802.15.4 CSMA/CA for medium access control, and that there are no hidden terminals. In this setting, starting with a set of simple fixed point equations, we derive sufficient conditions for the tree network to approximately satisfy certain given QoS targets such as end-to-end delivery probability and delay under a given rate of generation of measurement packets at the sources (arrival rates vector). The structures of our sufficient conditions provide insight on the dependence of the network performance on the arrival rate vector, and the topological properties of the network. Furthermore, for the special case of equal arrival rates, default backoff parameters, and for a range of values of target QoS, we show that among all path-length-bounded trees (spanning a given set of sources and BS) that meet the sufficient conditions, a shortest path tree achieves the maximum throughput