A backbone network is the central part of the communication network, which provides connectivity within the various systems across large distances. Disruptions in a backbone network would cause severe consequences which could manifest in the service outage on a large scale. Depending on the size and the importance of the network, its failure could leave a substantial impact on the area it is associated with. The failures of the network services could lead to a significant disturbance of human activities. Therefore, making backbone communication networks more resilient directly affects the resilience of the area. Contemporary urban and regional development overwhelmingly converges with the communication infrastructure expansion and their obvious mutual interconnections become more reciprocal. Spreading failures are of particular interest. They usually originate in a single network segment and then spread to the rest of network often causing a global collapse. Two types of spreading failures are given focus, namely: epidemics and cascading failures. How to make backbone networks more resilient against spreading failures? How to tune the topology or additionally protect nodes or links in order to mitigate an effect of the potential failure? Those are the main questions addressed in this thesis. First, the epidemic phenomena are discussed. The subjects of epidemic modeling and identification of the most influential spreaders are addressed using a proposed Linear Time-Invariant (LTI) system approach. Throughout the years, LTI system theory has been used mostly to describe electrical circuits and networks. LTI is suitable to characterize the behavior of the system consisting of numerous interconnected components. The results presented in this thesis show that the same mathematical toolbox could be used for the complex network analysis. Then, cascading failures are discussed. Like any system which can be modeled using an interdependence graph with limited capacity of either nodes or edges, backbone networks are prone to cascades. Numerical simulations are used to model such failures. The resilience of European National Research and Education Networks (NREN) is assessed, weak points and critical areas of the network are identified and the suggestions for its modification are proposed.

Nachrichtentechnische Systeme werden stets durch unvermeidbare zufällige Störungen beeinflußt. Neben anderen Komponenten sind davon besonders Oszillatoren betroffen. Die durch die Störungen verursachten zufälligen Schwankungen in der Oszillatorausgabe können als Amplituden- und Phasenabweichungen modelliert werden. Dabei zeigt sich, daß vor allem zufällige Phasenfluktuationen von Bedeutung sind. Zufällige Phasenfluktuationen können unter Verwendung stochastischer Prozesse zweiter Ordnung mit kurzem oder langem Gedächtnis modelliert werden. Inhalt der Dissertation ist die Herleitung eines Verfahrens zur Simulation zufälliger Phasenfluktuationen von Oszillatoren mit kurzem Gedächtnis unter Berücksichtigung von Datenblattangaben.

In interference-limited wireless networks, interference management techniques are important in order to improve the performance of the systems. Given that spectrum and energy are scarce resources in these networks, techniques that exploit the resources efficiently are desired. We consider a set of base stations operating concurrently in the same spectral band. Each base station is equipped with multiple antennas and transmits data to a single-antenna mobile user. This setting corresponds to the multiple-input single-output (MISO) interference channel (IFC). The receivers are assumed to treat interference signals as noise. Moreover, each transmitter is assumed to know the channels between itself and all receivers perfectly. We study the conflict between the transmitter-receiver pairs (links) using models from game theory and microeconomic theory. These models provide solutions to resource allocation problems which in our case correspond to the joint beamforming design at the transmitters. Our interest lies in solutions that are Pareto optimal. Pareto optimality ensures that it is not further possible to improve the performance of any link without reducing the performance of another link. Strategic games in game theory determine the noncooperative choice of strategies of the players. The outcome of a strategic game is a Nash equilibrium. While the Nash equilibrium in the MISO IFC is generally not efficient, we characterize the necessary null-shaping constraints on the strategy space of each transmitter such that the Nash equilibrium outcome is Pareto optimal. An arbitrator is involved in this setting which dictates the constraints at each transmitter. In contrast to strategic games, coalitional games provide cooperative solutions between the players. We study cooperation between the links via coalitional games without transferable utility. Cooperative beamforming schemes considered are either zero forcing transmission or Wiener filter precoding. We characterize the necessary and sufficient conditions under which the core of the coalitional game with zero forcing transmission is not empty. The core solution concept specifies the strategies with which all players have the incentive to cooperate jointly in a grand coalition. While the core only considers the formation of the grand coalition, coalition formation games study coalition dynamics. We utilize a coalition formation algorithm, called merge-and-split, to determine stable link grouping. Numerical results show that while in the low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regime noncooperation between the links is efficient, at high SNR all links benefit in forming a grand coalition. Coalition formation shows its significance in the mid SNR regime where subset link cooperation provides joint performance gains. We use the models of exchange and competitive market from microeconomic theory to determine Pareto optimal equilibria in the two-user MISO IFC. In the exchange model, the links are represented as consumers that can trade goods within themselves. The goods in our setting correspond to the parameters of the beamforming vectors necessary to achieve all Pareto optimal points in the utility region. We utilize the conflict representation of the consumers in the Edgeworth box, a graphical tool that depicts the allocation of the goods for the two consumers, to provide closed-form solution to all Pareto optimal outcomes. The exchange equilibria are a subset of the points on the Pareto boundary at which both consumers achieve larger utility then at the Nash equilibrium. We propose a decentralized bargaining process between the consumers which starts at the Nash equilibrium and ends at an outcome arbitrarily close to an exchange equilibrium. The design of the bargaining process relies on a systematic study of the allocations in the Edgeworth box. In comparison to the exchange model, a competitive market additionally defines prices for the goods. The equilibrium in this economy is called Walrasian and corresponds to the prices that equate the demand to the supply of goods. We calculate the unique Walrasian equilibrium and propose a coordination process that is realized by the arbitrator which distributes the Walrasian prices to the consumers. The consumers then calculate in a decentralized manner their optimal demand corresponding to beamforming vectors that achieve the Walrasian equilibrium. This outcome is Pareto optimal and lies in the set of exchange equilibria. In this thesis, based on the game theoretic and microeconomic models, efficient beamforming strategies are proposed that jointly improve the performance of the systems. The gained results are applicable in interference-limited wireless networks requiring either coordination from the arbitrator or direct cooperation between the transmitters.

Within this thesis, we investigate the possibilities of physical layer secrecy for two special system models. In detail, we study beamforming and protection strategies in the Multiple-Input Single-Output (MISO) Gaussian Wiretap Channel (WTC) and the Gaussian two-hop relay WTC with multiple antennas at transmitter and receiver. In both system models, we examine the influence of partial Channel State Information (CSI) on the link to the eavesdropper and compare the achievable secrecy rates with the case of full CSI. We show for the MISO WTC that in the fast fading scenario the Beamforming Vector (BV) can be optimized such that the ergodic secrecy rate is maximized with regard to the degree of channel knowledge. Further we show that the ergodic secrecy rate can be significantly increased by usage of Artificial Noise (AN), if applied in a smart way. This means that the degree of channel knowledge on the link to the eavesdropper influences the portion of power that is spent for AN at the transmitter as well as the direction, in which the AN signal is sent. In addition, we apply the same beamforming and protection strategies to the slow fading scenario and find that these techniques also reduce the secrecy outage probability. For the two-hop relay WTC, we introduce Information Leakage Neutralization (IN) as a new protection strategy. If applied to a system model, where the transmitter has full CSI, the instantaneous secrecy rate performs almost as well as the instantaneous capacity of the peaceful system without an eavesdropper. The IN protected scheme outperforms the AN protected approach and performs much better than any beamforming scheme without additional protection mechanism. Another positive aspect of the IN protected scheme in the case of full CSI is that conventional channel codes can be applied instead of wiretap codes. For the case of partial CSI, where the transmitter has only an outdated estimate on the channel between relay and the eavesdropper, we show that the IN protected scheme can also be applied. Here, it strongly depends on the channel realizations and the delay of the estimate, whether the IN or the AN protection scheme should be applied. / In dieser Arbeit wird das Leistungsvermögen der Sicherheit auf der physikalischen Schicht anhand von zwei speziellen Systemmodellen untersucht. Im Detail werden Beamforming- und Absicherungsstrategien im gaußschen Multiple-Input Single-Output (MISO) Wiretap Channel (WTC) und dem gaußschen Two-hop Relay WTC mit mehreren Antennen am Sender und Empfänger studiert. In beiden Systemmodellen wird der Einfluss von partieller Kanalkenntnis zum Abhörer betrachtet und die so erreichbaren Sicherheitsraten mit denen verglichen, die bei voller Kanalkenntnis erreichbar sind. Für den MISO WTC kann gezeigt werden, dass für Kanäle mit schnellem Schwund der Beamforming-Vektor in Hinblick auf die ergodische Sicherheitsrate unter Berücksichtigung des Grades der Kanalkenntnis optimiert werden kann. Zudem kann durch die intelligente Verwendung von künstlichem Rauschen (Artificial Noise, AN) die ergodische Sicherheitsrate signifikant erhöht werden. Hierbei nimmt der Grad der Kanalkenntnis direkt Einfluss auf die Aufteilung der Leistung zwischen Daten- und AN-Signal am Sender sowie auch auf die Richtung, in der das AN-Signal gesendet wird. Zudem kann gezeigt werden, dass dieselben Beamforming- und Absicherungsstrategien ebenfalls die Sicherheitsausfallwahrscheinlichkeit für Kanäle mit langsamem Schwund minimieren. Im gaußschen Two-hop Relay WTC wird Information Leakage Neutralization (IN) als neuartige Absicherungsstrategie eingeführt. Diese Absicherungsstrategie erreicht nahezu dieselben instantanen Raten wie ein friedvolles System ohne Abhörer, wenn es bei voller Kanalkenntnis am Sender eingesetzt wird. Weiterhin sind durch die IN-Absicherungsstrategie höhere Raten erreichbar als durch den Einsatz von AN. Zusätzlich kann im Fall von voller Kanalkenntnis auf den Einsatz von Wiretap-Codes verzichtet werden. Auch im Fall partieller Kanalkenntnis, wo der Sender nur eine veraltete Schätzung des Kanals zwischen Relay und Abhörer besitzt, kann gezeigt werden, dass die IN-Absicherungsstrategie angewendet werden kann. Hierbei hängt es jedoch stark von den Kanalrealisierungen und dem Alter der Kanalschätzung ab, ob die IN- oder die AN-Absicherungsstrategie bessere Ergebnisse bringt und daher angewandt werden sollte.

The number of secure data streams a relay-assisted interference channel can support has been an intriguing problem. The problem is not solved even for a fundamental scenario with a single antenna at each transmitter, receiver and relay. In this paper, we study the achievable secure degrees of freedom of instantaneous relay-assisted interference channels with real and complex coefficients. The study of secure degrees of freedom with complex coefficients is not a trivial multiuser extension of the scenarios with real channel coefficients as in the case for the degrees of freedom, due to secrecy constraints. We tackle this challenge by jointly designing the improper transmit signals and widely-linear relay processing strategies.

In this paper, we analyze the four-node relay wiretap channel, where the relay performs amplify-and-forward. There is no direct link between transmitter and receiver available. The transmitter has multiple antennas, which assist in securing the transmission over both phases. In case of full channel state information (CSI), the transmitter can apply information leakage neutralization in order to prevent the eavesdropper from obtaining any information about the signal sent. This gets more challenging, if the transmitter has only an outdated estimate of the channel from the relay to the eavesdropper. For this case, we optimize the worst case secrecy rate by choosing intelligently the beamforming vectors and the power allocation at the transmitter and the relay.

In heterogeneous dense networks where spectrum is shared, users privacy remains one of the major challenges. When the receivers are not only interested in their own signals but also in eavesdropping other users' signals, the cross talk becomes information leakage.We propose a novel and efficient secrecy rate enhancing relay strategy EFFIN for information leakage neutralization. The relay matrix is chosen such that the effective leakage channel (spectral and spatial) is zero. Thus, it ensures secrecy regardless of receive processing employed at eavesdroppers and does not rely on wiretaps codes to ensure secrecy, unlike other physical layer security techniques such as artificial noise. EFFIN achieves a higher sum secrecy rate over several state-of-the-art baseline methods.