Secrecy outage analysis in a hybrid cognitive relay network with energy harvesting

Abstract

SummaryIn this paper, we investigate the physical layer security of a hybrid cognitive relay network using an energy harvesting relay in presence of an eavesdropper. In the hybrid scheme, a secondary user (SU) as well as a cognitive relay works either in underlay or in overlay mode. In underlay, the transmit power of the SU as well as the relay is limited by the maximum acceptable interference at primary user (PU) receiver as required by an outage constraint of PU, a quality of service for PU. The secondary network consists of a decode and forward relay that harvests energy from radio frequency signal of secondary transmitter as well as PU transmitter to assist the SU in forwarding the information signal to the destination. A time switching relaying protocol is used at the relay. We evaluate the secrecy outage probability of secondary relay network assuming that channel state information of the interfering links from both the SU and relay transmitter to PU receiver is imperfect. Our results reveal the impact of imperfect channel state information, energy harvesting time, tolerable interference threshold, and PU outage constraint on the secrecy outage probability of SU.