Incentive-Aware End-to-End Covert Routing for Space-Air-Ground Integrated Networks

Area of Science:

• Cybersecurity and Network Engineering
• Wireless Communication Systems
• Game Theory in Networks

Background:

• Covert communication is vital for wireless security, aiming to hide legitimate transmissions from adversaries.
• Achieving end-to-end covertness in space-air-ground integrated networks (SAGINs) faces challenges from satellite relay, ground forwarding, and cooperative jamming.
• Existing methods struggle with the complexities of integrated network architectures and adversarial behaviors.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose an incentive-aware end-to-end covert routing framework for SAGINs.
• To enhance covert communication security by addressing satellite-to-ground relay access and ground multi-hop forwarding.
• To incentivize cooperative jamming to improve ground-route covertness and ensure long-term stability.

Main Methods:

• Established a two-stage SAGIN model to analyze covert capacity and performance.
• Designed an incentive mechanism for cooperative jamming, balancing reward allocation and jammer power costs.
• Transformed the routing problem into a shortest-weighted path-finding problem and used a zero-determinant strategy for stable relay access.

Main Results:

• The proposed framework effectively balances satellite-to-ground covert capacity and ground-route utility.
• Demonstrated superior performance compared to baseline relay selection schemes.
• Achieved stable long-term covert routing performance against uncertain warden behaviors.

Conclusions:

• The incentive-aware framework provides a robust solution for end-to-end covert communication in SAGINs.
• The integration of game theory and routing optimization enhances network security and stability.
• The approach offers a promising direction for secure wireless transmissions in complex, integrated network environments.