Short-packet Covert Communication Design for Minimizing Age of Information under Non-ideal Channel Conditions

ZHU Kaiji; MA Ruiqian; LIN Zhi; MA Yue; WANG Yong; GUAN Xinrong; CAI Yueming

doi:10.11999/JEIT250836

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ZHU Kaiji, MA Ruiqian, LIN Zhi, MA Yue, WANG Yong, GUAN Xinrong, CAI Yueming. Short-packet Covert Communication Design for Minimizing Age of Information under Non-ideal Channel Conditions[J]. Journal of Electronics & Information Technology. doi: 10.11999/JEIT250836

Citation:

ZHU Kaiji, MA Ruiqian, LIN Zhi, MA Yue, WANG Yong, GUAN Xinrong, CAI Yueming. Short-packet Covert Communication Design for Minimizing Age of Information under Non-ideal Channel Conditions[J]. Journal of Electronics & Information Technology. doi: 10.11999/JEIT250836

Citation:

ZHU Kaiji, MA Ruiqian, LIN Zhi, MA Yue, WANG Yong, GUAN Xinrong, CAI Yueming. Short-packet Covert Communication Design for Minimizing Age of Information under Non-ideal Channel Conditions[J]. Journal of Electronics & Information Technology. doi: 10.11999/JEIT250836

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Short-packet Covert Communication Design for Minimizing Age of Information under Non-ideal Channel Conditions

doi: 10.11999/JEIT250836 cstr: 32379.14.JEIT250836

1.
College of Electronic Engineering, National University of Defense Technology, Hefei 230037, China
2.
Key Laboratory of Near-Range RF Sensing ICs & Microsystems, Ministry of Education, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing 210094, China
3.
College of Communications Engineering, Army Engineering University of PLA, Nanjing 210007, China

Funds: The National Natural Science Foundation of China (62471477 and 62301254), The Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20230916), The Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (30925010602)

Received Date: 2025-09-01
Accepted Date: 2026-01-04
Rev Recd Date: 2026-01-04

Available Online: 2026-01-12

Abstract

Abstract

Objective With the rapid development of mobile communication technologies and the widespread adoption of smart devices, the security and timeliness of information transmission are critical. Most existing studies on covert communication assume ideal channel conditions and long packet lengths, which are impractical for delay-sensitive applications. This paper addresses the problem of minimizing the average Covert Age of Information (CAoI) under non-ideal channel conditions caused by limited pilot symbols. The objective is to improve both timeliness and security in short-packet covert communication systems. Methods A system model is considered in which a transmitter sends short packets to a legitimate receiver under the surveillance of a warden. The effects of pilot length and transmit power on channel estimation error are characterized. Based on this analysis, closed-form expressions for the detection error probability and the average CAoI are derived. A joint optimization problem is then formulated to determine the optimal transmit power, total blocklength, and pilot-to-data ratio. This problem is solved using a golden-section search algorithm. Results and Discussions Numerical results show that an optimal total packet length and an optimal pilot-to-data ratio exist for minimizing the average CAoI (Fig. 3). The proposed joint optimization strategy significantly outperforms fixed-ratio schemes (Fig. 4). As the covertness constraint becomes stricter, the transmit power decreases, which requires longer pilot sequences to preserve channel estimation accuracy (Fig. 6(a)). The optimal total packet length is also shown to decrease as the covertness constraint is relaxed (Fig. 6(b)). Additionally, increasing the distance between Alice and Bob degrades the average CAoI performance due to poorer channel conditions (Fig. 5). Conclusions This study optimizes the average CAoI in short-packet covert communication systems with imperfect channel estimation. Closed-form expressions for covertness and CAoI are obtained, and a golden-section search method is applied to dynamically adjust the packet structure to minimize the average CAoI. Numerical results confirm that the optimized design outperforms fixed-allocation methods. The results further show that stricter covertness constraints require longer pilot sequences to compensate for reduced transmit power, providing useful design guidance for latency-sensitive covert wireless systems.
- Covert communication,
- Short-packet communication,
- Non-ideal channel,
- Covert age of information

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References(26)

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