Covert Communication with a Multi-Antenna Warden in Noise Uncertainty UAV-Assisted Wireless Systems

Chan Gao

School of Cybersecurity, Xi’an University of Posts and Telecommunications, Xi’an , Shaanxi, 710121, China

*Corresponding author

Covert communication ensures the security of information transmission mainly by hiding the existence of the wireless communication process. In this paper, we investigate the covert performance of wireless communication systems in amplify-and-forward unidirectional networks by using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) as a relay under the detection from a multi-antenna warden. We propose a cooperative jamming transmission scheme to counteract the detection of a multi-antenna warden that transmits artificial noise of variable power to all participants in a communication system. Based on the transmission scheme, we first develop a theoretical model to derive the expressions for the detection error probability and the optimal detection threshold of the warden. Then, we derive the expressions for the transmission rate to explore the optimal covert performance under a given covertness condition. Finally, the simulation results show the impact of the artificial noise and the noise uncertainty on the covert performance while validating the effectiveness of the scheme.

Covert communication, multi-antenna warden, UAV-assisted system, noise uncertainty

Xiaomeng Xue, Chan Gao, Linying Tian, and Bingbing Xiao (2024). Covert Communication with a Multi-Antenna Warden in Noise Uncertainty UAV-Assisted Wireless Systems. Journal of Networking and Network Applications, Volume 4, Issue 3, pp. 129–136. https://doi.org/10.33969/J-NaNA.2024.040304.

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