Physical Layer Intercept Probability in Wireless Sensor Networks over Fisher–Snedecor ? Fading Channels

In this paper, we analyze the physical layer security (PLS) of an arbitrarily dimensioned wireless sensor network (WSN) in the presence of an unauthorized attacker. Various scheduling schemes have been exploited in order to enhance the secure transmission of reliable links impaired by Fisher–Snedecor F fading. The path loss among active nodes is also considered. The exact intercept probability expressions are derived recalling an optimal scheduling scheme (OS), a scheduling policy based on a specific cumulative distribution function (CS), and round-robin scheduling as a baseline. The asymptotic behavior of the intercept metric is also presented in a simpler form with acceptable accuracy. The secrecy diversity orders are defined and the security–reliability tradeoff of WSN is specified. Numerical results are provided to demonstrate the interplay of various main/wiretap channel conditions, the distances among nodes, the number of active sensors, and the average main-to-eavesdropper’s signal ratio in order to upgrade the quality of the WSN secrecy performance. Additionally, the impact of the outage probability on the intercept probability is defined for a variety of scenarios under which either the CS or OS scheme could be selected as suitable for PLS enhancement. The obtained results are verified by independent Monte Carlo simulations.