Search Results (12)

Existing covert communication schemes based on On–Off Keying (OOK) have not considered asymmetric noise environments, which limits their applicability in complex communication scenarios such as terahertz and underwater acoustic covert communications. To address this issue, this paper proposes a phase-based OOK coding scheme. In particular, the transmitter Alice can adjust the initial phase of the transmitted symbol to align the signal with the stronger noise components in asymmetric noise communication scenarios, thereby exploiting the masking effect of noise to achieve covert transmission. To quantify performance, the KL divergence and mutual information of the OOK coding scheme are adopted as measures of covertness and transmission performance, respectively. An optimization problem involving the input signal distribution $a_n$, signal amplitude $\beta$, and initial phase angle $\theta$ is formulated and solved to obtain the maximum covert transmission rate. Numerical results demonstrate that in asymmetric noise systems, the initial phase angle and the Gaussian noise components on the real and imaginary axes of the complex plane influence both covertness performance and transmission rate. Adjusting the initial phase towards the direction with lower noise components can maximally suppress noise interference, thereby improving the covertness performance. Full article

Learning from steganography, this study considers ocean ambient noise as a carrier and proposes a covert underwater acoustic communication scheme without detectable and repetitive features. We modulate the information in the parameters of the steganography operation rather than the specific signal waveforms. The steganography operation mainly includes three steps: symmetrical division, phase rotation, and time–domain inversion. The rotation phases are related to the transmitted information. The receiver demodulates by performing the same operation, like transmitter without knowing transmitted waveforms. Therefore, we can use countless ocean ambient noise signals to transmit the same information, which can avoid repetitive features. To optimize the communication performance, the relationship between the demodulation output value and the rotation phases is derived, and the optimal modulation parameter setting methods of modulation are given. Finally, the simulation and sea trial results show that the bit error ratio of the studied covert underwater acoustic communication scheme is approximately 5 × 10⁻⁴ at a signal-to-noise ratio of −4 dB, which verifies the effectiveness of the scheme, and the rate is 4 bps. And the results of cyclic spectrum, cepstrum and square frequency-doubling methods show that the signal of the studied scheme does not have any detectable features. Full article

This paper proposes a whistle-generative adversarial network (WhistleGAN) that generates whistles for biomimetic underwater covert acoustic communication. The proposed method generates new whistles to maintain covertness by avoiding the repetitive use of the same whistles. Since the human ear perceives octave frequency such that low-frequency resolution is relatively larger than that of low frequencies, the proposed WhistleGAN uses mel filter banks to keep the fidelity in mimicking while reducing the complexity. The mean opinion score test verified that the whistles generated by the proposed method and the recorded real whistles have a similar score of 4.3, and the computer simulations proved that the bit error rate performance of the proposed method is the same as that of the real whistle. Full article

This paper presents an underwater biomimetic covert acoustic communication system that achieves high covertness and a high data rate by mimicking dolphin group whistles. The proposed method uses combined time–frequency shift keying modulation with continuous varying carrier frequency modulation, which mitigates the interference between two overlapping multiple whistles while maintaining a high data rate. The data rate and bit error rate (BER) performance of the proposed method were compared with conventional underwater covert communication through an additive white Gaussian noise channel, a modeled underwater channel, and practical ocean experiments. For the covertness test, the similarity of the proposed multiple whistles was compared with the real dolphin group whistles using the mean opinion score test. As a result, the proposed method demonstrated a higher data rate, better BER performance, and large covertness to the real dolphin group whistles. Full article

Short-range biomimetic covert communications have been developed using dolphin whistles for underwater acoustic covert communications. Due to a channel characteristics difference by range, the conventional short-range methods cannot be directly applied to long-range communications. To enable long-range biomimicking communication, overcoming the large multipath delay and a high degree of mimic (DoM) in the low-frequency band is required. This paper proposes a novel biomimetic communication method that preserves a low bit-error rate (BER) with a large DoM in the low-frequency band. For the transmission, the proposed method utilizes the time-dependent frequency change of the whistle, and its receiver obtains additional SNR gain from the multipath delay. Computer simulations and practical ocean experiments were executed to demonstrate that the BER performance of the proposed method is better than the conventional methods. For the DoM assessment, the novel machine learning-based method was utilized, and the result shows that the whistles generated by the proposed method were recognized as the actual whistle of the right humpback whale. Full article

In order to meet the requirements of communication security and concealment, as well as to protect marine life, bionic covert communication has become a hot research topic for underwater acoustic communication (UAC). In this paper, we propose a bionic covert UAC (BC-UAC) method based on the time–frequency contour (TFC) of the bottlenose dolphin whistle, which can overcome the safety problem of traditional low signal–noise ratio (SNR) covert communication and make the detected communication signal be excluded as marine biological noise. In the proposed BC-UAC method, the TFC of the bottlenose dolphin whistle is segmented to improve the transmission rate. Two BC-UAC schemes based on the segmented TFC of the whistle, the BC-UAC scheme using the whistle signal with time-delay (BC-UAC-TD) and the BC-UAC scheme using the whistle signal with frequency-shift (BC-UAC-FS), are addressed. The original whistle signal is used as a synchronization signal. Moreover, the virtual time reversal mirror (VTRM) technique is adopted to equalize the channel for mitigating the multipath effect. The performance of the proposed BC-UAC method, in terms of the Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC) and bit error rate (BER), is evaluated under simulated and measured underwater channels. Numerical results show that the proposed BC-UAC method performs well on covertness and reliability. Furthermore, the covertness of the bionic modulated signal in BC-UAC-TD is better than that of BC-UAC-FS, although the reliability of BC-UAC-FS is better than that of BC-UAC-TD. Full article

Underwater acoustic (UWA) biomimicking communications have been developed for covert communications. For the UWA covert communications, it is difficult to achieve the bit error rate (BER) and the degree of mimic (DoM) performances at the same time. This paper proposes a biomimicking covert communication method to increase both BER and DoM (degree of mimic) performances based on the Time Frequency Shift Keying (TFSK). To increase DoM and BER performances, the orthogonality requirements of the time- and frequency-shifting units of the TFSK are theoretically derived, and the whistles are multiplied by the sequence with a large correlation. Two-step DoM assessments are also developed for the long-term whistle signals. Computer simulations and practical lake and ocean experiments demonstrate that the proposed method increases the DoM by 35% and attains a zero BER at −6 dB of Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR). Full article

For underwater acoustic covert communications, biomimetic covert communications have been developed using dolphin whistles. The conventional biomimetic covert communication methods transmit slightly different signal patterns from real dolphin whistles, which results in a low degree of mimic (DoM). In this paper, we propose a novel biomimetic communication method that preserves the large DoM with a low bit error rate (BER). For the transmission, the proposed method utilizes the various contours of real dolphin whistles with the link information among consecutive whistles, and the proposed receiver uses machine learning based whistle detectors with the aid of the link information. Computer simulations and practical ocean experiments were executed to demonstrate the better BER performance of the proposed method. Ocean experiments demonstrate that the BER of the proposed method was 0.002, while the BER of the conventional Deep Neural Network (DNN) based detector showed 0.36. Full article

A novel method of bionic Morse coding mimicking humpback whale vocal is presented for covert underwater acoustic communication. The complex humpback whale song is translated as bionic Morse codes based on information entropy. The communication signal is made akin to the natural singing of male humpback whales. The intruder can detect the signal but will not be able to recognize the communication signal due to unified resemblance with the natural sound. This novel technique gives an excellent low probability of recognition characteristics. A flawless stealthy underwater acoustic communication has been established which has negligible chances of deciphered with high imperceptibility. Standard mimicry Morse codes have been developed for the characters of the English language and compared with Morse coding. Covert information of one character per second can be watermarked with perfect stealth and clandestine communication. This novel concept has been verified at transmission distance of five km and less than 10⁻³ Bit Error Rate (BER) is achieved at Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) down to negative seven dB. Zero BER is attained by estimating the channel by a matching pursuit algorithm and equalizing the errors by virtual time reversal mirror technique. Full article

To meet the increasing demand of covert underwater acoustic communication, biologically inspired mimicry communication watermarking the data in symmetrical humpback whale song is presented. Mimicry is an entirely different approach from traditional covert communication where data are transmitted by spreading the waveform at a low signal to noise ratio. In this innovative technique, the carrier signal is imitated symmetrical to the ocean background noise, which can be shipping noise, anthropological noise, or the vocals emitted by sea animals. The eavesdropper can detect the communication signal, but will assume it to be real ocean noise due to its symmetry. It excludes the mimicked signal from recognition, which makes the communication covert. In this research, we watermarked the covert information in humpback whale song using discrete cosine transform in the frequency domain. The mimicked symmetrical signal provided excellent imperceptibility with the real song and an outstanding camouflage effect was calculated. We validated the novel concept by simulation and underwater tank experiment. 10⁻⁴ BER was achieved in the underwater tank experiment, which was diminished to zero error by using matching pursuit estimation and virtual time reversal equalization. This novel bionic covert communication technique is feasible for clandestine underwater acoustic communication in the presence of an eavesdropper with better imperceptibility. Full article

In this paper, we propose a covert underwater acoustic communication method that is robust to fading using a chirp signal combined with a frequency-hopping spread spectrum scheme. A fractional Fourier transform, which estimates the slope of the signal frequency variation, is applied to the receiver to enable a robust and reliable symbol estimation with respect to the frequency and irregular phase variations. In addition, since the recursive symbol synchronization can be implemented using a chirp signal, compression and expansion effects due to the Doppler shift can be mitigated. Simulation and lake trials were performed to verify the performance of the proposed method. The simulation was performed by two different methods. Full article

A novel portable underwater acoustic modem is proposed in this paper for covert communication between divers or underwater unmanned vehicles (UUVs) and divers at a short distance. For the first time, real dolphin calls are used in the modem to realize biologically inspired Covert Underwater Acoustic Communication (CUAC). A variety of dolphin whistles and clicks stored in an SD card inside the modem helps to realize different biomimetic CUAC algorithms based on the specified covert scenario. In this paper, the information is conveyed during the time interval between dolphin clicks. TMS320C6748 and TLV320AIC3106 are the core processors used in our unique modem for fast digital processing and interconnection with other terminals or sensors. Simulation results show that the bit error rate (BER) of the CUAC algorithm is less than 10 ${}^{-5}$ when the signal to noise ratio is over ‒5 dB. The modem was tested in an underwater pool, and a data rate of 27.1 bits per second at a distance of 10 m was achieved. Full article