A joint helper selection and power allocation scheme for secure underwater acoustic transmission

Underwater acoustic sensor networks (UASNs) are usually deployed in open environments. Due to the broadcast characteristic of acoustic signals, data transmission in the network is vulnerable to eavesdropping risks from potential eavesdroppers. In this paper, we propose a joint helper selection and power allocation scheme (HSPAS) for acoustic cooperative jamming. We construct a joint multi-node jamming model and decompose the original optimization problem into two sub-problems of helper selection and jamming power allocation. On the basis of exploring the influence of node position on jamming effect, we implement the selection of helpers and propose a distributed algorithm to achieve the efficient allocation of jamming power, obtaining a feasible optimal solution with low complexity. Both simulation results and field experiments prove that the proposed scheme can effectively reduce the eavesdropping risk and improve the security of data transmission in the network.