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International Conference on Networking and Network Applications (NaNA)

Covert and Secure Communications in UAV-Aided Untrusted Relay Systems

Kai Yang, Shikai Shen, Bin Yang, Fei Deng, Yumei She, Kaiguo Qian, Yi-Wen Zhang, Riyu Wang

Published Aug 9, 2024• 3 citations
Publisher

Abstract

This paper studies the covert and secure communications in a UAV-aided untrust relay system composed of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), a base station (BS), a user and a warden (Willie). The UAV collects data from underground users, and then uploads it to the BS. The BS forwards it to the remote user. The UAV attempts to perform covert communication with the BS in the presence of Willie, while the untrust BS serving as a relay also intercepts the message from the UAV. To ensure the covert and secure communications, we first derive the average minimum detection error rate (DEP) at Willie’s location using the noise uncertainty model. We then formulate the average covert transmission rate maximization as an optimization problem with the constraints of covertness and security requirements. We further solve the optimization problem using a search method. Numerical results are provided to validate our theoretical analysis and also to illustrate the impact of power allocation factors on the covert and secure rate. Finally, we achieve maximization of the covert transmission rate in different scenarios.

DOI
10.1109/nana63151.2024.00021

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This paper studies the covert and secure communications in a UAV-aided untrust relay system composed of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), a base station (BS), a user and a warden (Willie). The UAV collects data from underground users, and then uploads it to the BS. The BS forwards it to the remote user. The UAV attempts to perform covert communication with the BS in the presence of Willie, while the untrust BS serving as a relay also intercepts the message from the UAV. To ensure the covert and secure communications, we first derive the average minimum detection error rate (DEP) at Willie’s location using the noise uncertainty model. We then formulate the average covert transmission rate maximization as an optimization problem with the constraints of covertness and security requirements. We further solve the optimization problem using a search method. Numerical results are provided to validate our theoretical analysis and also to illustrate the impact of power allocation factors on the covert and secure rate. Finally, we achieve maximization of the covert transmission rate in different scenarios.
Wireless systems are of paramount importance in enabling ubiquitous data transmission for various Internet of Things (IoT) applications. However, due to the broadcast nature and openness of wireless channels, such systems face inherent security challenges. Covert communication is an enabling technology for secure wireless communications while the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)-assisted covert communication is particularly promising for enhancing covert performance. This paper investigates joint covert and secure communications in a two-hop UAV-assisted wireless system, where a source S transmits a covert message to a destination D with the help of an untrusted UAV, while being subject to detection by a warden W. We first design a covert transmission scheme for the proposed system with the considerations of both covert and secure constraints. We then develop theoretical models for the warden1detection error probability and the covert-and-secure rate (CSR) from S to D. Based on these models, we further explore the optimal power control for CSR maximization under both covertness and security constraints. Finally, numerical results are presented to validate the theoretical models and demonstrate the performance of covert and secure communications in the UAV-assisted system.
Owing to the ever increasing of information privacy requirement, covert communication has gained more and more attention, whose effective range is limited by the trade-off between the covertness and the transmit power. Benefiting from the high mobility and easy deployment, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can be utilized to expand the range of covert networks. Thus, we propose a UAV-relayed covert communication scheme with finite blocklength to maximize the effective transmission bits from the transmitter to the legitimate receiver against a flying warden. The transmitter adopts the maximum ratio transmission and the relay performs Gaussian signalling transmission to cause uncertainty at the warden. First, the optimal detection thresholds are derived at the warden towards the transmitter and the relay, respectively. Then, the hovering location of the warden is optimized to maximize the summation of relative entropies from the transmitter and the relay, which can greatly threaten the covertness. With this worst covert situation, the blocklength and transmit power at the transmitter and the relay are jointly optimized under the constraint of the end-to-end error detection probability to maximize the effective transmission rate from the transmitter to the legitimate receiver. Numerical results are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed UAV-relayed covert communication scheme.
Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) aided augmented reality (AR) has developed rapidly in recent years and has become a promising technology in disaster rescue, transportation, agriculture, and environmental monitoring. However, the information leakage is challenging the usage of UAV-aided AR systems with wireless communications. In this article, a dual UAVs assisted covert communication system (CCS) is proposed, where one UAV transmits the covert message to ground receivers and a cooperative UAV performs as a jammer to interfere with the malicious eavesdropper. However, flying UAVs result in fast channel fading between the UAVs and ground nodes, which reduces the covert rate of the CCSs. To maximize the average covert rate, we formulated a non-convex optimization problem under the constraint that the detection error probability (DEP) of the monitor is minimum. Furthermore, the problem is decomposed into three subproblems and transformed into convex, and these subproblems are solved alternately by designing an iterative algorithm. Simulation results reveal that the average covert rate performance of the proposed optimization algorithm can respectively achieve 16% and 40% gains than those without covert constraint and without the cooperative UAV used as a jammer.
In this paper, a joint wiretap and covert transmission method is proposed for uplink multi-user multi-antenna ground to unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communications. To characterize the fundamental limit of the above scenario, we formulate an optimization problem to maximize the sum of secret and covert transmission rates subject to constraints of secrecy outage probability (SOP), detection error probability (DEP), and the transmit powers of secret and covert transmitters. To solve the optimization problem, we propose a bisection search algorithm using semidefinite relaxation and reveal the influence of key parameters on the wiretap and covert transmission rates, analytically and numerically. Our results fill the gaps in joint wiretap and covert transmission for uplink multi-user multi-antenna UAV communications and provide new insights to construct such systems.
Wireless systems are of paramount importance for providing ubiquitous data transmission for smart cities. However, due to the broadcasting and openness of wireless channels, such systems face potential security challenges. UAV-assisted covert communication is a supporting technology for improving covert performances and has become a hot issue in the research of wireless communication security. This paper investigates the performance of joint covert and security communication in a tow-hop UAV-assisted wireless system, where a source transmits the covert message to a destination with the help of an untrusted UAV. We first design a transmission scheme such that use UAVs to assist in covert communications while ensuring the security of covert messages. Then, we develop a theoretical model to derive the expressions for the detection error probability of the warden and the covert and security rate, and the maximum covert and security rate is optimized by power control under a given covertness and security requirements. Finally, numerical results are provided to illustrate our theoretical analysis and the performance of covert and security communication in such systems.
In this paper, we study a novel joint information-theoretic secrecy and covertness model for an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-assisted finite blocklength transmission system, in which an UAV delivers classified information to a ground user (Bob) in the presence of two unauthorized users (Eve and Willie). Specifically, Eve tries to decode the legitimate information while Willie tries to detect if the UAV's transmission is present or not. Firstly, we assume that the perfect location knowledge of both Eve and Willie is known at the UAV. In this scenario, to guarantee security and covertness, the average secrecy rate maximization problem is formulated via joint design of the UAV's transmit power and three dimensional (3D) trajectory under Willie's covertness constraint. Technically speaking, the optimization problem is non-convex and mathematically intractable to tackle owing to the coupling of multiple variables. To address this non-convex problem, an iterative alternating optimization (AO) algorithm is developed with the assistance of the successive convex approximation (SCA) technique. After that, we extend the system model to both Eve's and Willie's imperfect location knowledge case, which is more sophisticated compared to the perfect location knowledge case due to the uncertain location constraints. We still utilize the iterative AO algorithm combined with SCA andS\mathcal {S}S-procedure techniques to cope with the nonconvex problem. Numerical results indicate that our proposed 3D optimization algorithm performs better than the conventional two dimensional (2D) scheme and the benchmark scheme for both perfect and imperfect location knowledge cases.