Malicious users control and management in cognitive radio networks with priority queues

Abstract

Malicious users (MUs) have the tendency to disrupt the activities of honest users in the network if not properly controlled. In a massive cognitive radio network (CRN) with priority queues, malicious secondary users (SUs) can manipulate their priority queue requirements and mislead legitimate SUs to vacate the channels. In this paper, a game theoretic based signal detection approach is proposed to control the presence of MUs in CRN. If the received signal strength is less than the predefined threshold for primary transmissions in the presence of interference and noise, such a user is marked to be malicious and its payoff table is updated. Through the mixed strategy Nash equilibrium method, the payoff table of each user can be updated to aid removal of MUs from the network. The outcome of the simulation results shows that such an approach can reduce the impact of malicious activities in the massive CRN where SUs are expected to be low-power energy-efficient devices.