Multi-User Covert Communication in Spatially Heterogeneous Wireless Networks

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Lee, Jinyoung, Yeom, Hyeonsik
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2026
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author Lee, Jinyoung
Yeom, Hyeonsik
author_facet Lee, Jinyoung
Yeom, Hyeonsik
contents This paper investigates an uplink multi-user covert communication system with spatially distributed users. Unlike prior works that approximate channel statistics using averaged parameters and homogeneous assumptions, this study explicitly models each user's geometric position and corresponding user-to-Willie and user-to-Bob channel variances. This approach enables an accurate characterization of spatially heterogeneous covert environments. We mathematically prove that a generalized on-off power control scheme, which jointly accounts for both Bob's and Willie's channels, constitutes the optimal transmission strategy in heterogeneous user configurations. Leveraging the optimal strategy, we derive closed-form expressions for the minimum detection error probability and the minimum number of cooperative users required to satisfy a covert constraint. With the closed-form expressions, comprehensive theoretical analyses are conducted, which are validated by Monte-Carlo simulations. One important insight obtained from the analysis is that user spatial heterogeneity can enhance covert communication performance. Building on these findings, a piecewise search algorithm is proposed to achieve exact optimality with significantly reduced computational complexity. We demonstrate that optimization considering user's spatial heterogeneity achieves substantially improved covert communication performance than that based on the assumption of spatial homogeneity.
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id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_25549
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Multi-User Covert Communication in Spatially Heterogeneous Wireless Networks
Lee, Jinyoung
Yeom, Hyeonsik
Signal Processing
This paper investigates an uplink multi-user covert communication system with spatially distributed users. Unlike prior works that approximate channel statistics using averaged parameters and homogeneous assumptions, this study explicitly models each user's geometric position and corresponding user-to-Willie and user-to-Bob channel variances. This approach enables an accurate characterization of spatially heterogeneous covert environments. We mathematically prove that a generalized on-off power control scheme, which jointly accounts for both Bob's and Willie's channels, constitutes the optimal transmission strategy in heterogeneous user configurations. Leveraging the optimal strategy, we derive closed-form expressions for the minimum detection error probability and the minimum number of cooperative users required to satisfy a covert constraint. With the closed-form expressions, comprehensive theoretical analyses are conducted, which are validated by Monte-Carlo simulations. One important insight obtained from the analysis is that user spatial heterogeneity can enhance covert communication performance. Building on these findings, a piecewise search algorithm is proposed to achieve exact optimality with significantly reduced computational complexity. We demonstrate that optimization considering user's spatial heterogeneity achieves substantially improved covert communication performance than that based on the assumption of spatial homogeneity.
title Multi-User Covert Communication in Spatially Heterogeneous Wireless Networks
topic Signal Processing
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.25549