We investigate the secrecy outage performance of maximal ratio combining (MRC) in cognitive radio networks over Rayleigh fading channels. In a single-input multiple-output wiretap system, we consider a secondary user (SU-TX) that transmits confidential messages to another secondary user (SU-RX) equipped with M (M ≥ 1) antennas where the MRC technique is adopted to improve its received signal-to-noise ratio. Meanwhile, an eavesdropper equipped with N (N ≥ 1) antennas adopts the MRC scheme to overhear the information between SU-TX and SU-RX. SU-TX adopts the underlay strategy to guarantee the service quality of the primary user without spectrum sensing. We derive the closed-form expressions for an exact and asymptotic secrecy outage probability.
['Hui Zhao', 'Danyang Wang', 'Chao-qing Tang', 'Yaping Liu', 'Gaofeng Pan', 'Tingting Li', 'Yunfei Chen']
Physical layer security of underlay cognitive radio using maximal ratio combining