Enhanced Physical Layer Security for Cooperative NOMA Network with Hybrid-Decode-Amplify-Forward Relaying via Power Allocation Assisted Control Jamming

This paper introduces the hybrid-decode-amplify-forward (HDAF) cooperative relaying into a control jamming aided NOMA network under Rayleigh-flat-fading channel conditions. In HDAF, the relay switches between AF and DF modes based on SNR threshold to forward the information signal to the corresponding NOMA users in the existence of an eavesdropper. We first characterize the secrecy performance of the considered network in terms of secrecy rate at both NOMA users analytically under different jamming scenarios. Further, to improve the secrecy rate, Differential Evolution (DE) algorithm-based power allocation is adopted to optimize the powers of jammer, relay, and NOMA users for which maximization of secrecy rate is chosen as the cost function. Moreover, the impact of different numerical parameters such as signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), jammer-to-eavesdropper distance, and relay-to-eavesdropper distance on the secrecy rate is investigated at both NOMA users by employing different jamming schemes. The MATLAB based simulation results validate the efficacy of proposed power allocation over fixed power allocation, CJ over other jamming schemes, and application of HDAF relaying for physical layer security enhancement of NOMA enabled cooperative network.