Dynamic and Distributed Probing for Covert Cognitive Mobile Edge Computing Networks
Xiaofan Liu, Haitham H. Esmat, Beatriz Lorenzo, Dennis Goeckel · IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications · 2025
Ensuring covert and secure communication remains a challenge in the evolving landscape of wireless communications. This paper presents a covert cognitive mobile edge computing network (CCMEC) in which secondary nodes (Alice) aim to transmit securely and offload computing tasks to secondary edge computing nodes (Bob) in the presence of multiple primary wardens (Willie). A two-stage connectivity probing and activation scheme is developed to maximize the data transmitted under covertness and minimize the energy consumption within a latency bound. The proposed scheme combines a distributed probing phase to find secure available connections based on the activity of primary and secondary nodes and a centralized activation phase to jointly optimize power allocation, channel, and Bob selection. The problem is solved by a Restless Multi-Armed Bandit (RMAB) framework with Whittle index optimization. Simulation results show the effectiveness of our approach in achieving covert communication compared to existing solutions.