Time-Hopping Covert Communication With Random Slots and Dispersed Energy

TY - JOUR

T1 - Time-Hopping Covert Communication With Random Slots and Dispersed Energy

AU - Lu, Kun

AU - Song, Zhe

AU - Wang, Shuai

AU - Li, Tingting

AU - Pan, Gaofeng

AU - Liu, Heng

AU - Karagiannidis, George

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2026 IEEE.

PY - 2026

Y1 - 2026

N2 - The growth of communication technologies has led to a corresponding increase in the need for information security. The use of covert communication techniques has the potential to significantly reduce the likelihood of the transmitted signal being intercepted by unintended receivers, thereby significantly increasing the security of the information. In this paper, we propose an energy-dispersed random time-hopping (ED-RTH) covert communication scheme. Building on existing time uncertainty schemes, this scheme further enhances time uncertainty through random time-hopping, while dispersing signal energy to achieve stronger covertness. We present a model for analyzing the covertness of the ED-RTH scheme. Given the complexity of the likelihood ratio distribution, the Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence is used to analyze the lower bound of Willie's detection error probability. Through constructing behavioral-level simulations for validation, we investigated the impact of the number of dispersed time slots K on both Willie's detection error probability and the system's covert throughput. Finally we compared the proposed ED-RTH scheme with existing time uncertainty scheme, and the results demonstrate that the ED-RTH scheme achieves significantly enhanced covertness.

AB - The growth of communication technologies has led to a corresponding increase in the need for information security. The use of covert communication techniques has the potential to significantly reduce the likelihood of the transmitted signal being intercepted by unintended receivers, thereby significantly increasing the security of the information. In this paper, we propose an energy-dispersed random time-hopping (ED-RTH) covert communication scheme. Building on existing time uncertainty schemes, this scheme further enhances time uncertainty through random time-hopping, while dispersing signal energy to achieve stronger covertness. We present a model for analyzing the covertness of the ED-RTH scheme. Given the complexity of the likelihood ratio distribution, the Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence is used to analyze the lower bound of Willie's detection error probability. Through constructing behavioral-level simulations for validation, we investigated the impact of the number of dispersed time slots K on both Willie's detection error probability and the system's covert throughput. Finally we compared the proposed ED-RTH scheme with existing time uncertainty scheme, and the results demonstrate that the ED-RTH scheme achieves significantly enhanced covertness.

KW - Covert communications

KW - finite blocklength

KW - random slots

KW - time-hopping

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105033268936

U2 - 10.1109/TIFS.2026.3675458

DO - 10.1109/TIFS.2026.3675458

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:105033268936

SN - 1556-6013

VL - 21

SP - 3212

EP - 3225

JO - IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security

JF - IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security

ER -