Electronic and Cyber Defense

Electronic and Cyber Defense

Improving Physical Layer Security in 5G Networks Based on Cooperative Node Performance

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Amir Roostaei 1
.R Esfahani 2
1 PhD student,, Imam Hossein University, Tehran, Iran
2 Assistant Professor, Imam Hossein (AS) University, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
With the expansion of 5G wireless networks and the need for sensitive information exchange, security has become a fundamental challenge. Traditional cryptographic methods, despite their algorithmic complexity, are vulnerable to technological advancements and require secure communication channels for cryptographic key exchange. This paper examines Physical Layer Security (PLS) solutions that enable secure data exchange by utilizing the inherent characteristics of wireless communication channels. The proposed system in this paper is a multi-antenna wireless communication system where users exchange secure information through a relay node in the presence of an eavesdropping node. To counter eavesdropping, a cooperative interference strategy is presented in two distinct phases, which, through artificial interference beamforming and information reception beamforming, reduces the Signal-to-Interference-and-Noise Ratio (SINR) at the eavesdropping node while increasing it at authorized nodes. The optimal system design is solved using Semi-Definite Relaxation (SDR), and the Transmit Zero-Forcing (TZF) beamforming scheme is also introduced for comparison with optimal performance. Simulation results show that the optimal scheme improves the average secrecy rate by 11.98 bps/Hz and 16.33 bps/Hz compared to the TZF scheme and reference system, respectively, and achieves an eavesdropping link outage probability of 81%. Meanwhile, the TZF scheme, with acceptable performance compared to the reference system, improves the secrecy rate by 4.35 bps/Hz and increases the eavesdropping link outage probability to 0.9%.
Keywords
Physical Layer Security
Eavesdropping Link Outage Probability
Cooperative Interference
Beamforming
Subjects
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Electronic and Cyber Defense
Volume 13, Issue 3 - Serial Number 51
Autumn
Autumn 2025
Pages 115-129

  • Receive Date 22 July 2025
  • Revise Date 30 August 2024
  • Accept Date 14 October 2025
  • Publish Date 23 October 2025