Contract-Based Incentive Mechanisms for UAV Networks in Covert Communications

Abstract

Covert communication is considered a promising technology for hiding transmission processes and activities from malicious eavesdropping. With the development of detection technology, the traditional point-to-point covert communication method cannot effectively guarantee the reliability of covert communication. In order to solve this problem, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) are widely adopted in covert communication as common relay equipment. However, the UAV maximizes its benefits by taking advantage of the information asymmetry between itself and the covert communication sender. Therefore, it is necessary to encourage UAV-assisted potential users (UPU) to transmit covert data honestly by designing an information asymmetry-based incentive mechanism. In this paper, we propose a UAV-assisted contract-theoretic (UACT) model to improve the covert communication performance, where UPU honestly transmits covert data and the throughput of UACT can be increased. Specifically, we first divide UPU into finite types and model the data transfer contract between the sender, UPU, and receiver. Then, the contract feasibility of UACT is derived with sufficient and necessary conditions. Finally, we analyze the contract optimization in the continuous case of UPUs. Numerical simulations show that the UACT can incentivize UPUs to transmit covert data through UAV assistance and make covert communication performance close to the information symmetry case.