Contact Us Search Paper

Joint Position and Power Control for Covert Communication in Dual-UAV Systems

Zewei Guo1,* and Yu Zhang2,*

Corresponding Author:

Zewei Guo and Yu Zhang

Affiliation(s):

1School of Systems Information Science, Future University Hakodate, Hakodate 041-8655, Japan

2School of Computer Science and Technology, Xidian University, Xi’an, Shaanxi, 710071, China

*Corresponding author

Abstract:

This paper investigates joint position and power control for downlink covert communication in a dual-UAV system, which consists of a UAV transmitter, a terrestrial receiver, a passive warden, and a cooperative UAV jammer. First, based on classical probability theory, the optimal detection threshold and the minimum detection error probability of Willie are analytically derived under the considered dual-UAV covert communication model. Then, by incorporating UAV mobility and controllable transmit power, closed-form expressions are obtained to characterize the optimal UAV positions and power control strategies under both transmission outage and covertness constraints. Finally, extensive numerical results are provided to validate the analytical findings and to demonstrate that the proposed joint position and power control scheme can substantially enhance the covert transmission performance of dual-UAV systems.

Keywords:

Covert communication, low detection probability communication, UAV position, power control, dual-UAV systems

Downloads: 5 Views: 38
Cite This Paper:

Zewei Guo and Yu Zhang (2025). Joint Position and Power Control for Covert Communication in Dual-UAV Systems. Journal of Networking and Network Applications, Volume 5, Issue 1, pp. 48–54. https://doi.org/10.33969/J-NaNA.2025.050105.

References:

[1] Q. Wu, W. Mei, and R. Zhang, “Safeguarding wireless network with uavs: A physical layer security perspective,” IEEE Wireless Communi-cations, vol. 26, no. 5, pp. 12–18, 2019.

[2] Y. Cai, F. Cui, Q. Shi, M. Zhao, and G. Y. Li, “Dual-UAV-enabled secure communications: Joint trajectory design and user scheduling,” IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, vol. 36, no. 9, pp. 1972–1985, 2018.

[3] Y. Roh, S. Jung, and J. Kang, “Cooperative UAV jammer for enhancing physical layer security: Robust design for jamming power and trajec-tory,” in Proceedings of IEEE Military Communications Conference (MILCOM), 2019, pp. 464–469.

[4] B. Ji, Y. Li, D. Cao, C. Li, S. Mumtaz, and D. Wang, “Secrecy perfor-mance analysis of UAV assisted relay transmission for cognitive network with energy harvesting,” IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, vol. 69, no. 7, pp. 7404–7415, 2020.

[5] B. A. Bash, D. Goeckel, and D. Towsley, “Limits of reliable commu-nication with low probability of detection on AWGN channels,” IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, vol. 31, no. 9, pp. 1921–1930, 2013.

[6] B. He, S. Yan, X. Zhou, and V. K. Lau, “On covert communication with noise uncertainty,” IEEE Communications Letters, vol. 21, no. 4, pp. 941–944, 2017.

[7] S. Yan, X. Zhou, J. Hu, and S. V. Hanly, “Low probability of detection communication: Opportunities and challenges,” IEEE Wireless Commu-nications, vol. 26, no. 5, pp. 19–25, 2019.

[8] H. Wu, Y. Zhang, X. Liao, Y. Shen, and X. Jiang, “On covert throughput performance of two-way relay covert wireless communications,” Wire-less Networks, vol. 26, no. 5, pp. 3275–3289, 2020.

[9] R. Sun, B. Yang, S. Ma, Y. Shen, and X. Jiang, “Covert rate maximiza-tion in wireless full-duplex relaying systems with power control,” IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol. 69, no. 9, pp. 6198–6212, 2021.

[10] X. Zhou, S. Yan, J. Hu, J. Sun, J. Li, and F. Shu, “Joint optimization of a UAV’s trajectory and transmit power for covert communications,” IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, vol. 67, no. 16, pp. 4276–4290, 2019.

[11] S. Yan, S. V. Hanly, and I. B. Collings, “Optimal transmit power and flying location for UAV covert wireless communications,” IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, vol. 39, no. 11, pp. 3321–3333, 2021.

[12] X. Zhou, S. Yan, D. W. K. Ng, and R. Schober, “Three-dimensional placement and transmit power design for UAV covert communications,” IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, vol. 70, no. 12, pp. 13 424–13 429, 2021.

[13] Z. Guo, R. Sun, Y. Shen, and X. Jiang, “Covert communication in satellite-terrestrial systems via beamforming and jamming,” IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, pp. 1–16, 2025.