Covert Wireless Communication with Multi-Domain Uncertainties

Dear Colleagues,

Due to the broadcast nature of wireless channels, communication security for sensitive information has received much attention. Apart from the communication content, the traffic in wireless channels and the location of nodes are also crucial for security against various attacks, e.g., side channel and brute force attacks. Against this background, covert communication (including also low probability detection communication) has been regarded as a promising technology to provide a high level of security and privacy in wireless networks. In covert communications, the randomness of the wireless environment is exploited to confuse a malicious warden with detection based on the binary hypothesis test. To cause extra uncertainties for warden detection, the randomness in time, space, frequency, power, and coding domains in wireless transmission need to be artfully designed. On the other hand, the metrics adopted for covert communication in various scenarios are different in covert communications, e.g., the timelessness, spectrum efficiency, energy efficiency, etc. In different scenarios, resource allocation also plays an important role in matching the desired metrics.

This Special Issue will focus on investigating fundamental and practical challenges for the analysis and design of covert communication with multi-domain uncertainties, proposing new transmission protocols and schemes for various metrics. More specifically, this Special Issue will bring together leading researchers and developers to present their views on the current trends and challenges, addressing various issues related to covert communication. Prospective authors are invited to submit original manuscripts on the following topics of interest, including but not limited to:

• Fundamental theory of covert communication
• Cooperation and relaying in covert communication
• Covert communication in time-critical networks
• Covert communication in massive MIMO systems
• RIS-aided covert communication
• Covert communication in spectrum sharing systems (cognitive radio, NOMA, etc.)
• Energy harvesting in covert communication
• Optimal coding for covert communication
• Machine learning in covert communication
• Covert communication in burgeoning scenarios (UAV, backscatter, etc.)
• Game-based resource allocation in covert communication

Dr. Weiwei Yang
Dr. Yuzhen Huang
Dr. Xingbo Lu
Guest Editors

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• covert communication
• physical layer security
• multi-domain uncertainties
• transmission strategies
• resource allocation