A secure relay selection scheme based on cooperative jamming for Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks

Physical layer security (PLS) is one of the important methods to solve the security problems of Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks (UASNs). In this paper, combining the characteristics of cooperative communication and cooperative jamming in PLS, we propose a Secure Relay Selection Scheme based on Cooperative Jamming for UASNs. On the one hand, according to the link quality and residual energy, one or several nodes are selected to forward information as relays. On the other hand, the scheme takes advantage of long propagation delay of the underwater acoustic channel and employs two different jamming ways: Self-Protection Jamming and Assistance Jamming, both of which can interfere with eavesdroppers without affecting the reception of legal users. The proposed scheme can increase the channel capacity of the legal channel by deploying relay nodes to forward the information and reduce the channel capacity of the eavesdropping channel by Self-Protection Jamming and Assistance Jamming. Simulation and field experiment results show that the proposed scheme can improve the PLS of the network.