Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

IEEE Wireless Communications Letters

Enhancing Covert Secrecy Rate in a Zero-Forcing UAV Jammer-Assisted Covert Communication

Xinying Chen, Zheng Chang, Timo Hämäläinen

Published Sep 23, 2024• 14 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Covert communications can hide confidential signals in environmental noise to avoid being detected and provide comprehensive security for wireless transmissions. However, there still exist significant risks in wireless transmission once being detected. In this letter, we propose a more secure covert scheme, where a multiple antennas transmitter, assisted by a multi-antenna UAV jammer, maximizes the covert secrecy rate under the scenarios of both correct and incorrect detection by a warden with both error detection probability and eavesdropping rate limitations satisfied. The transmitter and jammer adopt maximum ratio transmission (MRT) and zero-forcing, respectively, to maximize the transmission rate and minimize the interference at the legitimate receiver. First, we analyze the monotonicity of error detection probability to determine the optimal power detection threshold and the corresponding smallest error detection probability. Then, under this worst case, we jointly optimize the transmit and jamming power to maximize the covert secrecy rate while guaranteeing the covert and eavesdropping limits meet their requirements, respectively. Finally, simulation results are presented to prove the correctness of the theoretical conclusion and evaluate the effectiveness of our proposed scheme.

DOI
10.1109/lwc.2024.3465871

Related papers

Achieving Improved Security in UAV-Assisted Covert Communication Networks

Xinying Chen, Zheng Chang, Timo Hämäläinen

Covert communication can hide confidential signals in environmental noise to avoid being detected and provide comprehensive security for wireless transmission. However, there still exists significant risks in the wireless transmission once being detected. In this paper, we propose a more secure covert scheme, where a multiple antennas transmitter assisted by a multi-antenna UAV jammer maximizes the covert secrecy rate under the scenarios of both correct and incorrect detection by a warden with both error detection probability and eavesdropping rate limitations satisfied. The transmitter and jammer adopt maximum ratio transmission (MRT) and zero-forcing to maximize the transmission rate and minimize the interference at the receiver, respectively. First, we analyze the monotonicity of error detection probability to determine the optimal power detection threshold and the corresponding largest error detection probability. Then, under this worst case, we jointly optimize the transmit and jamming power to maximize the covert secrecy rate while guaranteeing the covert and eavesdropping limits meet their respective requirements. Finally, simulation results are presented to prove the correctness of the theoretical conclusion and evaluate the effectiveness of our proposed scheme.

IEEE/CIC International Conference on Communications in China (ICCC)•Aug 7, 2024•0 citations

Covert Communication for UAV-Assisted Systems with an Active Warden

Mingjie Yang, Linying Tian, Chan Gao +1 more

To address the inherent openness of wireless communication environments, covert communication has emerged as a promising approach to protect legitimate transmissions from unauthorized detection. This paper investigates a UAVassisted wireless covert communication system, where channel uncertainty is exploited to enable covert information transmission in the presence of active wardens acting simultaneously as jamming sources. We first model the indirect communication strategy between legitimate parties and characterize the detection behavior of an active warden. To achieve both covertness and communication efficiency, the transmit power of the devices and the hovering positions of UAVs are jointly optimized, subject to the dual constraints of maintaining a sufficient covert communication rate and ensuring a high detection error probability at the warden. Closed-form expressions for the wardens detection error probability and the achievable covert communication rate are derived. Furthermore, numerical optimization is employed to maximize the achievable rate under covertness constraints. Simulation results corroborate the theoretical analysis and demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme in enabling covert communication in jamming-assisted active warden scenarios.

International Conference on Satellite Internet (SAT-NET)•Oct 27, 2025•0 citations

Covert Communication for UAV-Assisted Wireless Systems with Probabilistic Jamming

Linying Tian, Chan Gao, Dong Zheng +2 more

With the rapid development of wireless network technology, wireless communication system effectively satisfies the demand for personal communication and information acquisition. However, the significant security issue is that wireless communication is both in a complex external environment and has open space characteristics, which makes the information vulnerable to malicious attacks. In this paper, we investigate the covert performance in an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-assisted wireless communication system with probabilistic jamming from a legitimate node. We propose a probabilistic jamming-based transmission scheme that uses a probabilistic approach to send an artificial noise with variable power to against the warden’s detection. For the proposed scheme, we then derive expressions for the warden’s detection error probability and covert rate. We also find the optimal covert performance under a given covertness. Finally, the simulation results are given to reveal the impact of the a priori artificial noise transmission probability on the communication covertness and the system’s performance, confirming the effectiveness of the probabilistic jamming scheme.

International Conference on Networking and Network Applications (NaNA)•Aug 9, 2024•2 citations

UAV-Relayed Covert Communication Towards a Flying Warden

Xinying Chen, Min Sheng, Nan Zhao +2 more

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.

IEEE Transactions on Communications•Aug 20, 2021•121 citations

Multi-antenna Jammer assisted covert communications in data collected IoT with NOMA

Liwei Tao, Weiwei Yang, Xingbo Lu +3 more

In this paper, we investigate covert communications in data collected IoT with NOMA, where the paired sensor nodes Smand Sntransmit covert messages to a legitimate receiver (Bob) in the presence of a Warden (Willie). To confuse the detection at Willie, an extra multi-antenna friendly jammer (Jammer) has been employed to transmit artificial noise (AN) with random power. Based on the CSI of Willie is available or not at Jammer, three AN transmission schemes, including null-space artificial noise (NAN), transmit antenna selection (TAS), and zero-forcing beamforming (ZFB), are proposed. Furthermore, the closed-form expressions of expected minimum detection error probability (EMDEP) and joint connection outage probability (JCOP) are derived to measure covertness and reliability, respectively. Finally, the maximum effective covert rate (ECR) is obtained with a given covertness constraint. The numerical results show that ZFB scheme has the best maximum ECR in the case of the number of antennas satisfies N > 2, and the same maximum ECR can be achieved in ZFB and NAN schemes with N =3D 2. Moreover, TAS scheme also can improve the maximum ECR compared with the benchmark scheme (i.e., signal-antenna jammer). In addition, a proper NOMA node pairing can further improve the maximum ECR.

China Communications•May 1, 2023•8 citations

Finite-Blocklength Multi-Antenna Covert Communication Aided By A UAV Relay

Xinying Chen, Min Sheng, Nan Zhao +2 more

We propose a UAV-relayed covert communication scheme with finite blocklength to maximize the effective transmission rate from the transmitter to the legitimate receiver against a flying warden. The transmitter adopts the maximum ratio transmission and the relay performs Gaussian signaling 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 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.

Globecom•Dec 1, 2021•8 citations
Covert communications can hide confidential signals in environmental noise to avoid being detected and provide comprehensive security for wireless transmissions. However, there still exist significant risks in wireless transmission once being detected. In this letter, we propose a more secure covert scheme, where a multiple antennas transmitter, assisted by a multi-antenna UAV jammer, maximizes the covert secrecy rate under the scenarios of both correct and incorrect detection by a warden with both error detection probability and eavesdropping rate limitations satisfied. The transmitter and jammer adopt maximum ratio transmission (MRT) and zero-forcing, respectively, to maximize the transmission rate and minimize the interference at the legitimate receiver. First, we analyze the monotonicity of error detection probability to determine the optimal power detection threshold and the corresponding smallest error detection probability. Then, under this worst case, we jointly optimize the transmit and jamming power to maximize the covert secrecy rate while guaranteeing the covert and eavesdropping limits meet their requirements, respectively. Finally, simulation results are presented to prove the correctness of the theoretical conclusion and evaluate the effectiveness of our proposed scheme.
Covert communication can hide confidential signals in environmental noise to avoid being detected and provide comprehensive security for wireless transmission. However, there still exists significant risks in the wireless transmission once being detected. In this paper, we propose a more secure covert scheme, where a multiple antennas transmitter assisted by a multi-antenna UAV jammer maximizes the covert secrecy rate under the scenarios of both correct and incorrect detection by a warden with both error detection probability and eavesdropping rate limitations satisfied. The transmitter and jammer adopt maximum ratio transmission (MRT) and zero-forcing to maximize the transmission rate and minimize the interference at the receiver, respectively. First, we analyze the monotonicity of error detection probability to determine the optimal power detection threshold and the corresponding largest error detection probability. Then, under this worst case, we jointly optimize the transmit and jamming power to maximize the covert secrecy rate while guaranteeing the covert and eavesdropping limits meet their respective requirements. Finally, simulation results are presented to prove the correctness of the theoretical conclusion and evaluate the effectiveness of our proposed scheme.
To address the inherent openness of wireless communication environments, covert communication has emerged as a promising approach to protect legitimate transmissions from unauthorized detection. This paper investigates a UAVassisted wireless covert communication system, where channel uncertainty is exploited to enable covert information transmission in the presence of active wardens acting simultaneously as jamming sources. We first model the indirect communication strategy between legitimate parties and characterize the detection behavior of an active warden. To achieve both covertness and communication efficiency, the transmit power of the devices and the hovering positions of UAVs are jointly optimized, subject to the dual constraints of maintaining a sufficient covert communication rate and ensuring a high detection error probability at the warden. Closed-form expressions for the wardens detection error probability and the achievable covert communication rate are derived. Furthermore, numerical optimization is employed to maximize the achievable rate under covertness constraints. Simulation results corroborate the theoretical analysis and demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme in enabling covert communication in jamming-assisted active warden scenarios.
With the rapid development of wireless network technology, wireless communication system effectively satisfies the demand for personal communication and information acquisition. However, the significant security issue is that wireless communication is both in a complex external environment and has open space characteristics, which makes the information vulnerable to malicious attacks. In this paper, we investigate the covert performance in an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-assisted wireless communication system with probabilistic jamming from a legitimate node. We propose a probabilistic jamming-based transmission scheme that uses a probabilistic approach to send an artificial noise with variable power to against the warden’s detection. For the proposed scheme, we then derive expressions for the warden’s detection error probability and covert rate. We also find the optimal covert performance under a given covertness. Finally, the simulation results are given to reveal the impact of the a priori artificial noise transmission probability on the communication covertness and the system’s performance, confirming the effectiveness of the probabilistic jamming scheme.
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.
In this paper, we investigate covert communications in data collected IoT with NOMA, where the paired sensor nodes Smand Sntransmit covert messages to a legitimate receiver (Bob) in the presence of a Warden (Willie). To confuse the detection at Willie, an extra multi-antenna friendly jammer (Jammer) has been employed to transmit artificial noise (AN) with random power. Based on the CSI of Willie is available or not at Jammer, three AN transmission schemes, including null-space artificial noise (NAN), transmit antenna selection (TAS), and zero-forcing beamforming (ZFB), are proposed. Furthermore, the closed-form expressions of expected minimum detection error probability (EMDEP) and joint connection outage probability (JCOP) are derived to measure covertness and reliability, respectively. Finally, the maximum effective covert rate (ECR) is obtained with a given covertness constraint. The numerical results show that ZFB scheme has the best maximum ECR in the case of the number of antennas satisfies N > 2, and the same maximum ECR can be achieved in ZFB and NAN schemes with N =3D 2. Moreover, TAS scheme also can improve the maximum ECR compared with the benchmark scheme (i.e., signal-antenna jammer). In addition, a proper NOMA node pairing can further improve the maximum ECR.
We propose a UAV-relayed covert communication scheme with finite blocklength to maximize the effective transmission rate from the transmitter to the legitimate receiver against a flying warden. The transmitter adopts the maximum ratio transmission and the relay performs Gaussian signaling 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 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.