UAV-Assisted Secure Communication for Coordinated Satellite-Terrestrial Networks

Abstract

This letter investigates an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-assisted satellite-terrestrial communication network. Specifically, a three-dimensional mobile UAV helps to enhance coverage and simultaneously enable secure communication between the satellite and ground users with the internal eavesdropper. Moreover, non-orthogonal multiple access protocol is adopted, such that the spectral efficiency can be further improved. Aiming to maximize the secrecy rate, a joint cooperative jamming, transmit power, and UAV trajectory optimization problem is proposed. To deal with its non-convexity, we propose an iterative optimization algorithm that first optimally addresses the jamming and transmit power optimization in close forms and then uses an iterative relaxation technique to design the UAV trajectory for the given power. Simulation results highlight the critical role of the mobile UAV and significantly confirm the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm over the benchmark schemes.