A cooperative scheme for secure communications with partner selection and incentive mechanism

In this paper, we study user cooperation to enhance secure communication. Specifically, the source cooperates with intermediate nodes for secure information transfer when multiple eavesdroppers exist. We propose a three-step cooperative scheme, whereby the source selects partners and stimulates them for secure communications by paying an amount of reward. Specifically, a set of partners are selected first, each of which acts as a relay or a jammer. Then, the source and the selected partners negotiate for the payment and transmission powers, which is modeled as a two-layer game. On the top layer, a buyer-seller game is utilized, where the source pays to buy the service provided by the partners. On the bottom layer, all the partners share the reward by determining their transmission powers in a distributed way, which is formulated as a non-cooperative power selection game. By analyzing the game, the partners can determine the transmission powers for cooperation, while the source can select the best payment. The source and the partners then perform cooperative secure communication according to the results of negotiation. Simulation results are provided to validate and show the performance of the proposed scheme.