Cooperative Wireless Communications and Physical Layer Security : State of the Art

One day morning, we were waiting for our college bus. Wipro industry’s bus was
slowly passing nearby us looking for its employees. At the last moment, when driver
increased speed, one person while stepping down from auto rickshaw was shouting
”stop the bus”, ”stop the bus”. Voluntarily whoever was present there started shouting
”stop, stop the bus”. And the sound finally reached the bus driver and he stopped
the bus and the employee could catch it in time. This analogy from everyday realistic
life simply depicts the spirit of cooperative wireless communication which utilizes
the information overheard by neighbouring nodes to offer reliable communication between
sender and receiver. The future converged wireless networks are expected to
provide high data rate services with extension in coverage area. Also, the next generation
networks should possess bandwidth efficiency, less power consumption ability
with small sized mobile equipment. Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system
is the best technique for the provision of communication diversity wherein multiple
antennas are installed at the sender and receiver. In today’s miniaturizing electronics
era, the hardware implementation of MIMO in the mobile equipment is not feasible
due to resource constraints. Cooperative wireless communication (CWC) is the upcoming
virtual MIMO technique to combat fading and achieve diversity through user
cooperation. Physical layer security (PLS) is the imminent security guarantee for the
cooperative communication.