Performance Analysis of Covert Communication Based on Integrated Satellite Multiple Terrestrial Relay Networks

With the arrival of the sixth generation (6G) mo-bile communication technology, one of its signature features is satellite-terrestrial fusion communication. Hence, integrated satellite multiple terrestrial relay network (ISMTRN) has become an emerging network architecture that has recently attracted much attention from scholars. Nevertheless, because of the open nature of the wireless channel, it inevitably leads to security issues. Moreover, covert communication technology has been considered one of the most promising and effective methods for secure communication. This paper explores the ISMTRN's covert performance with partial relay selection scheme. Particularly, one scenario that when a satellite communicates with one user via relaying, the specific relay may transmit covert information to the user is considered. Furthermore, we derive the closed-form expression of probability of detection error (PDE) to evaluate covert performance. Lastly, by virtue of numerical simulation, the influence of related system parameters on covert performance is investigated.