Robust Resource Allocation for OFDM-based Cognitive Radio in the Presence of Primary User Emulation Attack

Abstract

Cognitive radio (CR) is a promising solution to improve the spectrum efficiency in which some unlicensed users are allowed to exploit frequency bands which are not used by licensed network. However, CR technology imposes some threats to the network. One of these threats is primary user emulation attack where some malicious users try to send fake signals similar to the primary user (PU) and prevent secondary users from accessing vacant bands. Moreover, the presence of a primary user emulation attacker (PUEA) leads to additional interference to the CR and consequently, the efficiency of conventional power loading algorithms will be degraded. In this paper, we propose a power allocation scheme in an orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) based CR in the presence of PUEA. Power allocation is performed with the aim of maximizing the downlink transmission capacity achieved by the cognitive user, while keeping the interference level at the PU below a predefined threshold. Simulation results confirm the efficiency of our proposed power loading scheme, compared to classical loading algorithms that do not consider the activity of malicious users in the radio environment.