Relay Selection for Enhancing Wireless Security-Reliability Tradeoff in the Presence of Channel Estimation Errors

In this paper, we investigate the physical-layer security for a wireless two-hop relay network in the presence of channel estimation errors when estimating the channel state information (CSI) of the main links (from the source via relays to the destination) and wiretap links (from the source and relays to the eavesdropper). The eavesdropper can not only overhear the confidential signals transmitted by the relays, but also tap the secret messages transmitted by the source. We present an channel estimation error oriented relay selection (CEEoRS) scheme to improve the security-reliability tradeoff (SRT). We also analyze the intercept probability and outage probability of the CEEoRS scheme, where the intercept probability and outage probability can quantify the security and reliability, respectively. For comparison purposes, the traditional direct transmission with channel estimation errors (TDTwCEE) is also analyzed. It is shown that the proposed CEEoRS scheme outperforms the TDTwCEE scheme in terms of its SRT. More specifically, the proposed CEEoRS scheme is capable of significantly improving the SRT performance of wireless communications through increasing the number of relays.