Physical Layer Security for Wireless-Powered Ambient Backscatter Cooperative Communication Networks

Low power consumption and high spectrum efficiency as the great challenges for multi-device access to Internet-of-Things (IoT) have put forward stringent requirements on the future intelligent network. Ambient backscatter communication (ABcom) is regarded as a promising technology to cope with the two challenges, where backscatter device (BD) can reflect ambient radio frequency (RF) signals without additional bandwidth. However, minimalist structural design of BD makes ABcom security vulnerable in wireless propagation environments. By virtue of this fact, this paper considers the physical layer security (PLS) of a wireless-powered ambient backscatter cooperative communication network threatened by an eavesdropper, where the BD with nonlinear energy harvesting model cooperates with decode-and-forward (DF) relay for secure communication. The PLS performance is investigated by deriving the secrecy outage probability (SOP) and secrecy energy efficiency (SEE). Specifically, the closed-form and asymptotic expressions of SOP are derived as well as the secrecy diversity order for the first time. As an energy-constrained device, balancing power consumption and security is major concern for BD, thus the SEE of the proposed network is studied. The results from numerical analysis show that the performance improvement of SOP and SEE is impacted by system parameters, including transmit power, secrecy rate threshold, reflection efficiency and distance between the source and BD, which provide guidance on balancing security and energy efficiency in ambient backscatter cooperative relay networks.