UAV-Enabled Communication Strategy Against Detection in Covert Communication With Asymmetric Information

Abstract

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are viewed as a key component of 5G, 6G and beyond wireless networks to receive, store and forward information. Benefiting from swift deployment, low cost and high mobility, it has become a promising trend to leverage the UAVs to assist the covert communicator (Alice) against the detector’s (Willie’s) detection in a covert communication network. Nevertheless, once Willie notices the covert transmission process, the covert information is exposed to the risk of being cracked. In this paper, we propose a UAV-assisted covert communication asymmetric information game model (UCCAIG) that focuses on the covert communication countermeasure process based on information asymmetry. We introduce the UAV into covert communication relay assistant Alice and interference assistant Willie respectively, analyze the interaction between Alice and Willie, and derive the optimal strategies for both sides. We further prove the existence of a Bayesian Nash equilibrium (BNE) in the UCCAIG. In addition, we evaluate our proposals on a covert communication testbed with software radio, and the numerical results show that our proposed strategy increases the payoffs of Alice, reduces the payoffs of Willie in a variety of scenarios, and improves the covert communication rate compared with UAV-relayed game (URG).