  A downlink single-input single-output non-orthogonal multiple access system
is considered in which a base station (BS) is communicating with two legitimate
users in the presence of an external eavesdropper. A group of trusted
cooperative half-duplex relay nodes, powered by the BS, is employed to assist
the BS's transmission. The goal is to design relaying schemes such that the
legitimate users' secrecy rate region is maximized subject to a total power
constraint on the BS and the relays' transmissions. Three relaying schemes are
investigated: cooperative jamming, decode-and-forward, and amplify-and-forward.
Depending on the scheme, secure beamforming signals are carefully designed for
the relay nodes that either diminish the eavesdropper's rate without affecting
that of the legitimate users, or increase the legitimate users' rates without
increasing that of the eavesdropper. The results show that there is no relaying
scheme that fits all conditions; the best relaying scheme depends on the system
parameters, namely, the relays' and eavesdropper's distances from the BS, and
the number of relays. They also show that the relatively simple cooperative
jamming scheme outperforms other schemes when the relays are far from the BS
and/or close to the eavesdropper.
