SecDCF: An Optimized Cross-Layer Scheduling Scheme Based on Physical Layer Security

Scheduling schemes of wireless networks determine packet transmission opportunities for each network node by considering network parameters such as link quality, transmission rate, and delay. However, security has not been taken into account in these schemes, although it plays a critical role in network performance. In this paper a new scheduling scheme is proposed to determine packet transmissions under the constraint of achieving perfect physical layer security. Incorporating this new scheduling scheme into the distributed coordination function (DCF) of IEEE 802.11 medium access control (MAC) leads to a secure MAC protocol called SecDCF. Simulations are conducted to evaluate the performance of SecDCF, and results illustrate that SecDCF significantly outperform IEEE 802.11 DCF when physical layer security is enforced.