RaptorQ codes aided secure data delivery strategy for vehicular networks

Abstract

Abstract This paper deals with security issues in the presence of an eavesdropper for a vehicular scenario. The proposed secure data delivery scheme implements Fountain Codes, namely RaptorQ (RQ) codes, at the application layer (AL) to increase communication security against eavesdroppers’ attacks. For RQ coded transmission scheme, the receiver has to collect a sufficient number of coded packets to reconstruct the original source data. Secure delivery can be achieved if the legitimate user obtains enough RQ coded packets before the eavesdropper does. To satisfy this condition, it is proposed to use a road side unit (RSU) cooperation method when the eavesdropper has better channel conditions than the legitimate user to scatter the coded packets from multiple RSUs. The aim is to reduce the probability that the eavesdropper receives the sufficient number of coded packets and recover the source data before the legitimate user. An optimisation framework which jointly selects the RQ code rate at the AL and Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS) at the physical (PHY) layer to ensure the secure data transmission by allowing the user to decode the file with a certain probability of decoding success while minimising the intercept probability at the eavesdropper is presented. To evaluate the proposed system, a realistic end-to-end system level simulator is developed. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme can provide secure and efficient data transmission over vehicular networks by significantly reducing the intercept probability at the eavesdropper.