Multi-Hop Routing in Covert Wireless Networks

TL;DR

This paper explores multi-hop covert communication in networks with multiple relays and collaborating Willies, proposing algorithms for optimal path selection to enhance throughput and delay performance.

Contribution

It introduces novel algorithms for multi-hop covert communication with single or multiple keys, improving performance over single-hop methods.

Findings

Multi-hop transmission significantly enhances covert communication capabilities.

Using independent keys at relays outperforms single-key schemes.

Optimal path algorithms maximize throughput and minimize delay.

Abstract

In covert communication, Alice tries to communicate with Bob without being detected by a warden Willie. When the distance between Alice and Bob becomes large compared to the distance between Alice and Willie(s), the performance of covert communication will be degraded. In this case, multi-hop message transmission via intermediate relays can help to improve performance. Hence, in this work multi-hop covert communication over a moderate size network and in the presence of multiple collaborating Willies is considered. The relays can transmit covertly using either a single key for all relays, or different independent keys at the relays. For each case, we develop efficient algorithms to find optimal paths with maximum throughput and minimum end-to-end delay between Alice and Bob. As expected, employing multiple hops significantly improves the ability to communicate covertly versus the case of a single-hop transmission. Furthermore, at the expense of more shared key bits, analytical results and numerical simulations demonstrate that multi-hop covert communication with different independent keys at the relays has better performance than multi-hop covert communication with a single key.