This paper investigates the utilization of simultaneously transmitting and reflecting RIS (STAR-RIS) in supporting joint physical layer security (PLS) and covert communications (CCs) in a multi-antenna millimeter wave (mmWave) system, where the base station (BS) communicates with both covert and security users while defeating eavesdropping by wardens with the help of a STAR-RIS. Specifically, analytical derivations are performed to obtain the closed-form expression of warden's minimum detection error probability (DEP). Furthermore, the asymptotic result of the minimum DEP and the lower bound of the secure rates are derived, considering the practical assumption that BS only knows the statistical channel state information (CSI) between STAR-RIS and the wardens. Subsequently, an optimization problem is formulated with the aim of maximizing the average sum of the covert rate and the minimum secure rate while ensuring the covert requirement and quality of service (QoS) for legal users by jointly optimizing the active and passive beamformers. Due to the strong coupling among variables, an iterative algorithm based on the alternating strategy and the semi-definite relaxation (SDR) method is proposed to solve the non-convex optimization problem. Simulation results indicate that the performance of the proposed STAR-RIS-assisted scheme greatly surpasses that of the conventional RIS scheme, which validates the superiority of STAR-RIS in simultaneously implementing PLS and CCs.
In this paper, we investigate covert communication over millimeter-wave (mmWave) frequencies. In particular, a dual-beam mmWave transmitter, comprised of two independent antenna arrays, attempts to reliably communicate to a receiver Bob when hiding the existence of transmission from a warden Willie. In this regard, operating over mmWave bands not only increases the covertness thanks to directional beams, but also increases the transmission data rates given much more available bandwidths and enables ultra-low form factor transceivers due to the lower wavelengths used compared to the conventiona…
This paper investigates the covert communication in an air-to-ground (A2G) system, where a UAV (Alice) can adopt the omnidirectional microwave (OM) or directional mmWave (DM) transmission mode to transmit covert data to a ground user (Bob) while suffering from the detection of an adversary (Willie). For both the OM and DM modes, we first conduct theoretical analysis to reveal the inherent relationship between the transmit rate/transmit power and basic covert performance metrics in terms of detection error probability (DEP), effective covert rate (ECR), and covert Shannon capacity (CSC). To fac…
Covert communication prevents legitimate transmission from being detected by a warden while maintaining certain covert rate at the intended user. Prior works have considered the design of covert communication over conventional low-frequency bands, but few works so far have explored the higher-frequency millimeter-wave (mmWave) spectrum. The directional nature of mmWave communication makes it attractive for covert transmission. However, how to establish such directional link in a covert manner in the first place remains as a significant challenge. In this paper, we consider a covert mmWave comm…
In this paper, we investigate covert communication over millimeter-wave (mmWave) frequencies. In particular, a mmWave transmitter, referred to as Alice, attempts to reliably communicate to a receiver, referred to as Bob, while hiding the existence of communication from a warden, referred to as Willie. In this regard, operating over the mmWave bands not only increases the covertness thanks to directional beams, but also increases the transmission data rates given much more available bandwidths and enables ultra-low form factor transceivers due to the lower wavelengths used compared to the conve…
This paper considers a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-aided millimeter wave (mmWave) downlink communication system where hybrid analog-digital beamforming is employed at the base station (BS). We formulate a power minimization problem by jointly optimizing hybrid beamforming at the BS and the response matrix at the RIS, under signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) constraints. The problem is highly challenging due to the non-convex SINR constraints as well as the non-convex unit-modulus constraints for both the phase shifts at the RIS and the analog beamforming at the BS. A p…
Reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) emerges as a promising technology for the next generation networks. In this paper, we utilize the tools from stochastic geometry to study the performance of a RIS-assisted millimeter wave (mmWave) cellular network. Specifically, the locations of the base stations (BSs) and the midpoints of the blockages are modeled as two independent Poisson point processes (PPP) where the blockages are modeled by line boolean model and a fraction of the blockages are coated with RISs. The distinguish characteristics of mmWave communications, i.e., the directional beamf…
This paper considers a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-aided millimeter wave (mmWave) downlink communication system where hybrid analog-digital beamforming is employed at the base station (BS). We formulate a power minimization problem by jointly optimizing hybrid beamforming at the BS and the response matrix at the RIS, under the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) constraints at all users. The problem is highly challenging to solve due to the non-convex SINR constraints as well as the unit-modulus phase shift constraints for both the RIS reflection coefficients and the an…
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have brought a lot of flexibility in the network deployment. However, UAVs suffer from the high mobility and instability. To improve the capacity and reliability of the UAV networks, millimeter-wave (mmWave) and reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) can be used in the system. In this paper, we consider an RIS-assisted mmWave UAV wireless cellular network, where UAVs serve several users with the help of multiple RISs. We jointly optimize the deployment, user scheduling, beamforming vector, and RIS phases to maximize the sum-rate, with the constraints of the …
Reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) is considered as an extraordinarily promising technology to solve the blockage problem of millimeter wave (mmWave) communications owing to its capable of establishing a reconfigurable wireless propagation. In this paper, we focus on a RIS-assisted mmWave communication network consisting of multiple base stations (BSs) serving a set of user equipments (UEs). Considering the BS-RIS-UE association problem which determines that the RIS should assist which BS and UEs, we joint optimize BS-RIS-UE association and passive beamforming at RIS to maximize the sum-…
A fundamental challenge in millimeter-wave (mmWave) communication is the susceptibility to blocking objects. One way to alleviate this problem is the use of reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS). Nevertheless, due to the large number of passive reflecting elements on RIS, channel estimation turns out to be a challenging task. In this paper, we address the channel estimation for RIS-aided mmWave communication systems based on a localization method. The proposed idea consists of exploiting the sparsity of the mmWave channel and the topology of the RIS. In particular, we first propose the con…
A reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) can shape the radio propagation by passively changing the directions of impinging electromagnetic waves. The optimal control of the RIS requires perfect channel state information (CSI) of all the links connecting the base station (BS) and the mobile station (MS) via the RIS. Thereby the channel (parameter) estimation at the BS/MS and the related message feedback mechanism are needed. In this paper, we adopt a two-stage channel estimation scheme for the RIS-aided millimeter wave (mmWave) MIMO channels using an iterative reweighted method to sequentiall…
This paper proposes a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-aided and angular-based hybrid beamforming (AB-HBF) technique for the millimeter wave (mmWave) massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. The proposed RIS-AB-HBF architecture consists of three stages: (i) RF beamformer, (ii) baseband (BB) precoder/combiner, and (iii) RIS phase shift design. First, in order to reduce the number of RF chains and the channel estimation overhead, RF beamformers are designed based on the 3D geometry-based mmWave channel model using slow time-varying angular parameters of the channel. Second,…
In this paper, we focus our attention on the mitigation of beam squint for reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) aided wideband millimeter wave (mmWave) communications. Due to the intrinsic passive property, the phase shifts of all elements in RIS should be the same for all frequencies. However, in the wideband scenario, beam squint induced distinct path phases require designing different phase shifts for different frequencies. The above irreconcilable contradiction will dramatically affect the system performance, considering the RIS usually consists of enormous elements and the bandwidth o…
Location information offered by external positioning systems, e.g., satellite navigation, can be used as prior information in the process of beam alignment and channel parameter estimation for reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-aided millimeter wave (mmWave) multiple-input multiple-output networks. Benefiting from the availability of such prior information, albeit imperfect, the beam alignment and channel parameter estimation processes can be significantly accelerated with less candidate beams explored at all the terminals. We propose a practical channel parameter estimation method via a…
The opening of the millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum bands for 5G communications has motivated the need for novel spectrum sharing solutions at these high frequencies. In fact, reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) have recently emerged to enable spectrum sharing while enhancing the incumbents' quality-of-service (QoS). Nonetheless, co-existence over mmWave bands remains persistently challenging due to their unfavorable propagation characteristics. Hence, initiating mmWave spectrum sharing requires the RIS to further assist in improving the QoS over mmWave bands without jeopardizing spect…
Future wireless communication systems will evolve toward multi-functional integrated systems to improve spectrum utilization and reduce equipment sizes. A joint radar and communication (JRC) system, which can support simultaneous information transmission and target detection, has been regarded as a promising solution for emerging applications such as autonomous vehicles. In JRC, data security and privacy protection are critical issues. Thus, we first apply covert communication into JRC and propose a joint radar and covert communication (JRCC) system to achieve high spectrum utilization and sec…
This paper proposes a novel reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) architecture which enables channel estimation of RIS-assisted millimeter wave (mmWave) systems. More specifically, two channel estimation methods, namely, direct calculation (DC) and deep learning (DL) methods, are proposed to skillfully convert the overall channel estimation into two tasks: the channel estimation and the angle parameter estimation of a small number of active elements. In particular, the direct calculation method calculates the angle parameters directly through the channel estimates of adjacent active element…
In this work, we consider the deployment of reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) to extend the coverage of a millimeter-wave (mmWave) network in indoor dense spaces. We first integrate RIS into ray-tracing simulations to realistically capture the propagation characteristics, then formulate a non-convex optimization problem that minimizes the number of RISs under rate constraints. We propose a feasible point pursuit and successive convex approximation-based algorithm, which solves the problem by jointly selecting the RIS locations, optimizing the RIS phase-shifts, and allocating time reso…
In this paper, we utilize tools from stochastic geometry to estimate the interference propagation via reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) in the millimeter wave (mmWave, 30-300 GHz) band and specifically on the D band (110-170 GHz). The RISs have been of great interest lately to maximize the channel gains in non-line-of-sight (NLOS) communication situations. We derive expressions for stochastic interference level in RIS powered systems and validate those with simulations. It will be shown that the interference levels via RIS link are rather small compared to the designed RIS link or the L…
Millimeter wave (mmWave) massive multiple-input multiple-output (massive MIMO) is one of the most promising technologies for the fifth generation and beyond wireless communication system. However, a large number of antennas incur high power consumption and hardware costs, and high-frequency communications place a heavy burden on the analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) at the base station (BS). Furthermore, it is too costly to equipping each antenna with a high-precision ADC in a large antenna array system. It is promising to adopt low-resolution ADCs to address this problem. In this paper, we …
Indoor millimeter-wave (mmWave) environment channels are typically sparsely-scattered and dominated by a strong line-of-sight (LOS) path. Therefore, communication over such channels is in general extremely difficult when the LOS path is not present. However, the recent introduction of reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs), which have the potential to influence the propagation environment in a controlled manner, has the potential to change the previous paradigm. Motivated by this, we study the channel capacity optimization utilizing RISs in indoor mmWave environments where no LOS path is p…
Active RIS-Empowered Covert Satellite-Terrestrial Communications
College of Computer Science and Technology, Key Laboratory of Symbolic Computation and Knowledge Engineering of Ministry of Education, Jilin University（吉林大学计算机科学与技术学院、教育部符号计算与知识工程重点实验室）；Auburn University（奥本大学）；School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Sydney（悉尼大学电气与计算机工程学院）；Graduate School of Information Sciences, Tohoku University（东北大学情报科学研究院）
Reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-assisted communication appears as one of the potential enablers for sixth generation (6G) wireless networks by providing a new degree of freedom in the system design to telecom operators. Particularly, RIS-empowered millimeter wave (mmWave) communication systems can be a remedy to provide broadband and ubiquitous connectivity. This paper aims to fill an important gap in the open literature by providing a physical, accurate, open-source, and widely applicable RIS channel model for mmWave frequencies. Our model is not only applicable in various indoor and…
Millimeter wave (mmWave) communication systems using adaptive-resolution analog-to-digital converters (RADCs) have recently drawn considerable interests from the research community as benefit of their high energy efficiency and low implementation cost. In this paper, we focus on the mmWave uplink using RADCs and investigate the joint user scheduling and resource allocation problem. Specifically, we seek to maximize the system throughput of the scheduled users by jointly optimizing their transmit power level and hybrid combiners as well as the number of quantization bits, subject to practical c…
A reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) can shape the radio propagation environment by virtue of changing the impinging electromagnetic waves towards any desired directions, thus, breaking the general Snell's reflection law. However, the optimal control of the RIS requires perfect channel state information (CSI) of the individual channels that link the base station (BS) and the mobile station (MS) to each other via the RIS. Thereby super-resolution channel (parameter) estimation needs to be efficiently conducted at the BS or MS with CSI feedback to the RIS controller. In this paper, we adop…
Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) can establish favorable wireless environments to combat the severe attenuation and blockages in millimeter-wave (mmWave) bands. However, to achieve the optimal enhancement of performance, the instantaneous channel state information (CSI) needs to be estimated at the cost of a large overhead that scales with the number of RIS elements and the number of users. In this paper, we design a quasi-static broad coverage at the RIS with the reduced overhead based on the statistical CSI. We propose a design framework to synthesize the power pattern reflected by…
The hybrid relay-reflecting intelligent surface (HR-RIS) has been recently introduced as an efficient solution to overcome the double path loss and limited beamforming diversity of the conventional fully passive reflecting surface. This motivates us to investigate the application of the HR-RIS in improving the secrecy capacity of millimeter wave multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) systems with the presence of multi-antenna eavesdropper. The joint optimization of the transmit beamformer and the relay-reflecting coefficients at RIS is tackled via alternating optimization. In the proposed solut…
Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) have recently received widespread attention in the field of wireless communication. An RIS can be controlled to reflect incident waves from the transmitter towards the receiver; a feature that is believed to fundamentally contribute to beyond 5G wireless technology. The typical RIS consists of entirely passive elements, which requires the high-dimensional channel estimation to be done elsewhere. Therefore, in this paper, we present a semi-passive large-scale RIS architecture equipped with only a small fraction of simplified receiver units with only 1-…
Reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) has attracted extensive attention in recent years. However, most research focuses on the scenario of the narrowband and/or instantaneous channel state information (CSI), while wide bandwidth with the use of millimeter-wave (mmWave) (including sub-Terahertz) spectrum is a major trend in next-generation wireless communications, and statistical CSI is more practical to obtain in realistic systems. Thus, we {consider} the ergodic achievable rate of RIS-assisted mmWave multiple-input multiple-output orthogonal frequency division multiplexing communication sy…
Communication at mmWave bands carries critical importance for 5G wireless networks. In this paper, we study the characterization of mmWave air-to-ground (AG) channels for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communications. In particular, we use ray tracing simulations using Remcom Wireless InSite software to study the behavior of AG mmWave bands at two different frequencies: 28~GHz and 60~GHz. Received signal strength (RSS) and root mean square delay spread (RMS-DS) of multipath components (MPCs) are analyzed for different UAV heights considering four different environments: urban, suburban, rural, …
