Research on Covert Communication Transmission Scheme Combining Relay Selection and Mode Selection over Nakagami-<i>m</i> Fading Channels

HUANG Haiyan; HUANG Yi; ZHANG Ning; LIANG Linlin; ZHANG Xuejun

doi:10.11999/JEIT260287

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HUANG Haiyan, HUANG Yi, ZHANG Ning, LIANG Linlin, ZHANG Xuejun. Research on Covert Communication Transmission Scheme Combining Relay Selection and Mode Selection over Nakagami-m Fading Channels[J]. Journal of Electronics & Information Technology. doi: 10.11999/JEIT260287

Citation:

HUANG Haiyan, HUANG Yi, ZHANG Ning, LIANG Linlin, ZHANG Xuejun. Research on Covert Communication Transmission Scheme Combining Relay Selection and Mode Selection over Nakagami-m Fading Channels[J]. Journal of Electronics & Information Technology. doi: 10.11999/JEIT260287

Citation:

HUANG Haiyan, HUANG Yi, ZHANG Ning, LIANG Linlin, ZHANG Xuejun. Research on Covert Communication Transmission Scheme Combining Relay Selection and Mode Selection over Nakagami-m Fading Channels[J]. Journal of Electronics & Information Technology. doi: 10.11999/JEIT260287

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Research on Covert Communication Transmission Scheme Combining Relay Selection and Mode Selection over Nakagami-m Fading Channels

doi: 10.11999/JEIT260287 cstr: 32379.14.JEIT260287

1.
School of Electronic and Information Engineering, Lanzhou Jiaotong University, Lanzhou 730070, China
2.
China Railway Eryuan Engineering Group Co., Ltd., Chengdu 610031, China
3.
School of Cyber Engineering, Xidian University, Xi’an 710071, China

Funds: The National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant (62461032 and 62001359), Lanzhou Youth Science and Technology Talent Innovation Special Project (2025-QN-071), Key Research and Development Program of Gansu Province (25YFFA089), Key Research and Development Project of Lanzhou Jiaotong University (ZDYF2304)

Received Date: 2026-03-13
Accepted Date: 2026-06-29
Rev Recd Date: 2026-05-14

Available Online: 2026-07-07

Abstract

Abstract

Objective Covert communications provide higher security for wireless communication systems by enabling the transmission of covert information and preventing the interception of transmitted signals. However, channel conditions exhibit randomness and uncertainty in practical wireless propagation environments. The Nakagami-m fading channel, as a generalized fading model capable of describing various channel states, provides a realistic foundation for analyzing the performance of covert communication. Furthermore, relay cooperation techniques have attracted significant attention due to their ability to improve transmission reliability in fading channels. Meanwhile, different selections of relays and transmission modes have been shown to significantly affect system performance. Consequently, investigating the impact of relay selection and mode selection on the performance of covert communication systems over Nakagami-m channels holds considerable theoretical and practical importance for the development of next-generation secure communication protocols. Methods This paper proposes a covert communication system assisted by relay and mode selection. In this configuration, the source node communicates with the destination node via multiple relays, while a warden attempts to detect signals transmitted from both the source and relay nodes. A friendly jammer is employed to transmit interference signals in order to confuse the warden. For the transmission schemes of fixed half-duplex or full-duplex mode under optimal relay selection, random transmission mode under optimal relay selection, random relay selection under optimal transmission mode, and joint optimal relay and mode selection, the warden’s detection error probability under both half-duplex and full-duplex optimal relay conditions over Nakagami-m fading channels is derived. Furthermore, analytical expressions for the exact transmission outage probability, asymptotic transmission outage probability, and covert rate of the system are derived under different relay and mode selection strategies. Subsequently, theoretical analyses are validated using MATLAB simulations. Results and Discussions Simulation results show that an optimal detection threshold exist for minimizes the detection error probability (Fig. 2). As the detection threshold or the jamming power increases, the warden’s ability to detect covert information deteriorates, causing the detection error probability to approach one (Fig. 2, Fig. 3). Under the same target transmission rate and high SNR conditions, the joint relay and mode selection scheme achieves the lowest outage probability, thereby enhancing transmission reliability (Fig. 4, Fig. 5). At a target transmission rate of $ \text{6.5 bit/(s}\cdot \text{Hz)} $, the transmission outage probability with joint relay and mode selection is reduced by at least 6.9% compared to other considered cases (Fig. 4). As the transmit power and the number of relays increase, the covert rate gradually converges to a fixed value, and joint relay and mode selection is shown to achieve a higher covert rate (Fig. 6, Fig. 7). Conclusions This paper proposes a covert communication system based on relay selection and mode selection over Nakagami-m fading channels. Under different relay and mode selection strategies, analytical expressions for the warden’s detection error probability and the system’s exact transmission outage probability are derived, based on which the asymptotic transmission outage probability covert rate of the system are analyzed. Simulation results show that increasing detection threshold or jamming power gradually degrade the warden’s ability to detect covert information. Under identical target transmission rates and high SNR conditions, joint relay and mode selection yields the lowest outage probability. Further analysis indicates that by appropriately selecting relays and transmission modes, not only can the warden’s detection capability be weakened to protect covert information transmission, but the reliability and covertness of the system can also be improved. However, this study only considers ideal channel conditions, practical factors such as hardware impairments and environmental variations in real-world transmission should be accounted for in future work.
- covert communication,
- relay selection,
- mode selection,
- detection error probability,
- transmission outage probability

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References(27)

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