Multi-objective beamforming for secure communication in systems with wireless information and power transfer

In this paper, we study power allocation for secure communication in a multiuser multiple-input single-output (MIS-O) downlink system with simultaneous wireless information and power transfer. The receivers are able to harvest energy from the radio frequency when they are idle. We propose a multi-objective optimization problem for power allocation algorithm design which incorporates two conflicting system objectives: total transmit power minimization and energy harvesting efficiency maximization. The proposed problem formulation takes into account a quality of service (QoS) requirement for the system secrecy capacity. Our designs advocate the dual use of artificial noise in providing secure communication and facilitating efficient energy harvesting. The multi-objective optimization problem is non-convex and is solved by a semidefinite programming (SDP) relaxation approach which results in an approximate of solution. A sufficient condition for the global optimal solution is revealed and the accuracy of the approximation is examined. To strike a balance between computational complexity and system performance, we propose two suboptimal power allocation schemes. Numerical results not only demonstrate the excellent performance of the proposed suboptimal schemes compared to baseline schemes, but also unveil an interesting trade-off between energy harvesting efficiency and total transmit power.