Intelligent Reflecting Surface-Assisted Passive Covert Wireless Detection

• Published in: IEEE transactions on vehicular technology Vol. 73; no. 2; pp. 2954 - 2959
• Main Authors: Chen, Zhilin, Yan, Shihao, Zhou, Xiaobo, Shu, Feng, Ng, Derrick Wing Kwan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.02.2024; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Channels; Communication system security; Covert communication; covert detection; Error analysis; intelligent reflecting surface; Line of sight; Noise (mathematics); Optimization; Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces; Rician channels; Rician fading; Transceivers; Uncertainty; Wireless communication; Wireless sensor networks
• ISSN: 0018-9545; 1939-9359
• DOI: 10.1109/TVT.2023.3320089

In this work, we consider an intelligent reflecting surface (IRS)-assisted covert wireless detection system, where a transmitter aims to improve the detection accuracy of its transmission at a legitimate receiver, but avoid this transmission being detected by a warden. Considering Rician fading channels and a bounded noise uncertainty model, the detection performance at the legitimate receiver and warden is thoroughly analyzed. Then, the optimal design of the transmit power and IRS reflection matrix is proposed for maximizing the detection performance at the legitimate transceiver subject to a covertness constraint (i.e., the detection accuracy at the warden is less than a specific tolerable level). Our design is solely based on the line-of-sight (LoS) channel components and thus partially eliminates the need for acquiring the IRS's instantaneous channels, which takes a step towards the practical deployment of IRS. Our examination shows that IRS can still improve the covert detection performance even when only the LoS channel components are known and the improvement increases as the LoS components become more dominant.