This paper investigates the covert communication network assisted by the multi-antenna relay, by taking into account two typical scenarios of eavesdropping channel state information (ECSI). In this network, the relay operates in half-duplex amplify-and-forward (AF) relaying protocol, where the relay either forwards the Alice’s confidential signal to the Bob by designing the precoding matrix to enhance the communication performance or sends artificial noise (AN) to disrupt the warden’s detection. For this covert communication system with either instantaneous ECSI (I-ECSI) or statistical ECSI (S-ECSI), an optimization problem is formulated with the aim of maximizing the received signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the Bob while ensuring the constraints on the transmit power and covert performance. To solve the non-convex optimization problem, an alternating optimization method is proposed through jointly optimizing the transmit power at Alice and precoding matrix at the relay. Numerical results are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed method. In particular, our method is superior to the conventional ones up to 49.6% with I-ECSI and 57.9% with S-ECSI.
This paper investigates the covert communication network assisted by the multi-antenna relay, by taking into account two typical scenarios of eavesdropping channel state information (ECSI). In this network, the relay operates in half-duplex amplify-and-forward (AF) relaying protocol, where the relay either forwards the Alice’s confidential signal to the Bob by designing the precoding matrix to enhance the communication performance or sends artificial noise (AN) to disrupt the warden’s detection. For this covert communication system with either instantaneous ECSI (I-ECSI) or statistical ECSI (S-ECSI), an optimization problem is formulated with the aim of maximizing the received signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the Bob while ensuring the constraints on the transmit power and covert performance. To solve the non-convex optimization problem, an alternating optimization method is proposed through jointly optimizing the transmit power at Alice and precoding matrix at the relay. Numerical results are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed method. In particular, our method is superior to the conventional ones up to 49.6% with I-ECSI and 57.9% with S-ECSI.
In this paper, we consider a covert communication system with a multi-antenna full-duplex (FD) receiver to enhance covert performance. More precisely, the receiver Bob (i.e., multiple antennas) selects the best antenna to receive the covert message, and then it sends artificial noise (AN) to the warden Willie causing uncertainty by utilizing an antenna among the remaining antennas. In order to take full advantage of multi-antenna technology, we consider two cases: (1) Willie does not know which antenna Bob chooses to send AN, and Willie knows only part of the channel information. (2) Willie knows which antenna Bob chooses to send AN, and Willie knows all the channel information. Based on the analysis of the optimal detection threshold, we derive the minimum detection error probability of the two cases. Furthermore, given the pre-determined convert constraints, the closed-form expression of the maximum effective convert rate is derived. When the power of AN sent by Bob is greater than that of covert message sent by the sender Alice, surprised research results are shown: (1) the detection error rate of case 1 is higher than that of case 2. (2) the effective covert rate of case 1 is always lower than that of case 2. The simulation results show that the proposed scheme is more conducive to sending covert messages for Alice; in addition, the numerical results imply that the maximum effective covert rate of the system using the multi-antenna FD receiver is significantly higher than that of the traditional dual-antenna FD receiver system.
This paper addresses the problem of secure amplify-and-forward (AF) relaying for multiple-input multiple output (MIMO) relaying networks in the presence of multiple eavesdroppers. Assuming practical imperfect eavesdroppers' channel state information (ECSI), we propose a robust approach to optimize the relay AF matrix, subject to power constraint, in order to maximize the received signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) at the destination while satisfying a set of secrecy constraints. The ECSI errors are assumed to fall within some predefined bounded sets. Since the resultant optimization problem is non-convex and semi-infinite, we transform it into a form constituted by the differences of convex functions (DC) using suitable matrix transformation techniques. Then an algorithmic solution with proven convergence is proposed by resorting to the penalty-DC algorithm (P-DCA). Experimental results show the security of the proposed transceiver design against eavesdropping and the robustness against the channel uncertainties.
This study investigates covert communication in the presence of a half-duplex amplify-and-forward (AF) relay, while accounting for transceiver hardware impairments. A cooperative jamming strategy and channel uncertainty are employed to achieve covertness. For a trusted relay, informed jammers mitigate the effect of artificial noise (AN) at the legitimate receiver and increase the warden’s uncertainty, thereby enhancing the covert rate. For an untrusted relay, the jammer must emit AN while the data signal is transmitted toward the untrusted relay to reduce the untrusted relay’s signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR), which poses a challenge for deploying an informed jammer. The results show that, in both trusted and untrusted relay scenarios, increasing the transmit power yields only marginal performance gains due to hardware impairments, highlighting the importance of high-quality transceivers and compensation algorithms. Notably, under specific conditions, impairments in the legitimate receiver’s transmitter can slightly enhance performance in the trusted relay case, while in untrusted relay scenarios, impairments in any legitimate node degrade covert communication performance. Differences in hardware equipment quality between the transmitter (or retransmitter) and its associated jammer also affect the warden’s ability to detect the transmission.
This paper adopts the antenna selection technique to enhance the covert rate in a wireless communication network comprised of a source, a destination , an external jammer and an eavesdropper. In the covert communication, the level of transmit power is low and hence a source with multiple antennas can be adopted to send the information toward the single antenna destination while concurrently, the jammer transmits an artificial noise signal. For this system model, we consider a scenario where the source is forced to select one or several of its antennas to transmit its confidential information due to its limited RF chains. Furthermore, we consider two different jamming scenarios to support our covert communication: 1) The destination is unable to cancel the jamming signal, 2) The destination can subtract the jamming signal. For such a communication network, our aim is to maximize the covert rate subject to power constraint and covert communication requirement. In the first scenario, the optimization problem is non-convex, and hence, it can be solved through using Difference of Convex function (DC) method while the optimization problem of the second scenario is intrinsically convex. Our numerical results show that the higher the number of selected antennas at the transmitter, the higher the covert rate will be achieved.
Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) amplify-and- forward (AF) relaying is designed for secure communication between a source-destination pair in the presence of multiple eavesdroppers. Assuming statistical knowledge of the eavesdroppers' channel state information (ECSI) errors, we introduce a probabilistically robust design method, which aims to optimize the source transmission power and AF relaying matrix by maximizing the received signal-to- interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) at the destination, while satisfying a set of intercept probability constraints. The resultant optimization problem becomes nonconvex, and hence we propose a conservative two-step solution, where the source transmission power and the relaying matrix are sequentially optimized. Our simulation results demonstrate the improved secrecy of the proposed relaying design against eavesdropping and its robustness against the channel uncertainties.
Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) amplify-and- forward (AF) relaying is designed for secure communication between a source-destination pair in the presence of multiple eavesdroppers. Assuming statistical knowledge of the eavesdroppers' channel state information (ECSI) errors, we introduce a probabilistically robust design method, which aims to optimize the source transmission power and AF relaying matrix by maximizing the received signal-to- interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) at the destination, while satisfying a set of intercept probability constraints. The resultant optimization problem becomes nonconvex, and hence we propose a conservative two-step solution, where the source transmission power and the relaying matrix are sequentially optimized. Our simulation results demonstrate the improved secrecy of the proposed relaying design against eavesdropping and its robustness against the channel uncertainties.