Physical layer security of interference aligned mixed RF/unified-FSO relaying network

In this study, the authors secure the mixed radio frequency/free space optical (FSO) relay-aided interference aligned system using a proposed physical layer security algorithm. This algorithm reduces the quality of the received signal at the eavesdropper through two procedures. First, it minimises the data transmission power from the legitimate users and the relays. Second, it jams the eavesdropper by broadcasting artificial noise from the users and the relays. Therefore, a joint optimisation problem is formulated to degrade the received signal at the eavesdropper from the users and the relays and to maximise the jamming artificial noise power, which is solved using an iterative optimisation algorithm beside a semi-definitive programming algorithm. Furthermore, the pre-coding and decoding matrices of the users and the relay are designed to enable the legitimate users to cancel the artificial noise, while the eavesdropper is disabled from distinguishing the artificial noise from the real streams. Moreover, the security performance of the proposed algorithm is analysed, and the impact of the FSO link's state on the security performance is studied. The extensive simulation results show the efficiency of the proposed algorithm and illustrate the role of the FSO link's state on the security performance.