The cognitive satellite-terrestrial network (CSTN) has emerged as a transformative architecture for enabling ubiquitous global connectivity, yet its broadcast nature and heterogeneous service demands pose critical security challenges against increasingly sophisticated wiretap threats. This paper proposes a novel reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-assisted secure sparse code multiple access (SCMA) framework in CSTN, which aims to maximize the achievable secrecy rate by jointly optimizing the transmit beamforming, RIS reflection matrix, and SCMA codebook configuration while satisfying power constraints at the satellite and base station and meeting the quality-of-service demands of legitimate users. Specifically, a realistic RIS model incorporating coupled phase-amplitude constraints is considered for practical deployment scenarios. To solve the above non-convex optimization problem in dynamic environments, an intelligent decision-making mechanism based on a modified multi-agent two-delay deep deterministic (MMTD3) algorithm is developed to effectively decouple continuous beam control and discrete codebook selection, and provide a new paradigm for AI-driven cross-domain security optimization in CSTN. Simulation experiments demonstrate that the proposed framework outperforms existing benchmarks in key metrics including convergence, reward values, and secrecy rate, highlighting the framework’s potential for supporting ubiquitous security and massive heterogeneous service demands in CSTN.

In recent years, physical layer security (PLS) techniques have been paid considerable attention due to its high-security level and strong compatibility. However, the request of the superior legitimate channel is the Achilles’ Heel of PLS. A significant challenge exists in ensuring information confidentiality when the eavesdropper locates at user’s direction in the multi-antenna system. To overcome this limitation, we propose a novel framework to achieve secure communication via distributed split single sideband (SSB) time modulated array (TMA). By strategically dividing the I/Q paths of the transmitted signals into geographically separated subarrays, we establish the non-aliasing zone to achieve error-free communication for legitimate user (LU), while the eavesdropper positioned in the aliasing zone receives irrecoverably disturbed waveform. To assess performance, we adopt the encoder-decoder-based deep neural network to optimize the time-switching sequence, ensuring the subarrays’ spatial radiation areas overlap exclusively at the LU. A specialized loss function is formulated to enhance the interference-to-signal ratio by increasing the −1stto the +1stharmonic power ratio in non-LU regions. Furthermore, the joint optimization improves security by focusing energy on the LU while generating interference in non-LU areas. The bit error rate (BER) is used as the metric, and the simulation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed method, ensuring reliable transmission and increasing Eve’s BER to approximately 0.5, thereby compromising her ability to intercept the communication.

As a key component of the space-air-ground integrated network (SAGIN), low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites aim to provide global coverage and reliable services under high-speed mobile conditions, which are critically challenged by severe Doppler effect and inherent broadcast security threats. To address these issues, this paper investigates a multi-reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-assisted orthogonal time frequency space (OTFS) downlink transmission system, where a LEO satellite serves multiple information receivers and potential eavesdroppers acting as energy receivers via simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT). By jointly optimizing multi-dimensional resource variables, such as transmit beamforming and RIS reflection coefficients of the spatial domain, and the symbol scheduling matrix of the time-frequency domain, this paper aims to maximize the sum secrecy rate while satisfying constraints on satellite transmit power, the legitimate users’ quality of service, and energy-harvesting requirements. Given the high-dimensional, non-convex, and NP-hard nature of this problem, we develop an enhanced actor-critic deep reinforcement learning (DRL) framework. The core innovation lies in designing an episodic return-prioritized experience selection mechanism with online mixing, which significantly improves the sampling efficiency and policy stability by intelligently selecting training data. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed approach outperforms existing schemes in achieving a higher sum secrecy rate, providing a practical and highly efficient resource scheduling solution for building secure and reliable next-generation SAGIN.

Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems with one-bit analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) face a severe trade-off between hardware efficiency and channel estimation accuracy. While generative adversarial networks (GANs) show promise for this challenge, their deployment is hindered by training instability and mode collapse. To address these issues, we propose ReRpGAN, a novel adversarial learning framework that integrates a regularized relativistic pairing GAN loss and anL1loss within a deep residual network. This architecture effectively stabilizes the training process and prevents mode collapse, enabling precise channel reconstruction from severely quantized signals. Extensive experiments on a realistic ray-tracing channel dataset validate our theoretical claims. Key findings demonstrate that ReRpGAN consistently outperforms conventional GAN-based and deep learning estimators, particularly in challenging scenarios with low signal-to-noise ratios and limited pilot overhead. Furthermore, unlike existing methods that suffer from divergence, ReRpGAN exhibits superior scalability, delivering improved estimation accuracy as the number of base station antennas increases. This work sets a new benchmark for robust, data-driven channel estimation in next-generation wireless systems.

The widespread integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in next-generation communication networks poses a serious threat to data privacy while achieving advanced signal processing. Eavesdroppers can use AI-based analysis to detect and reconstruct transmitted signals, leading to serious leakage of confidential information. In order to protect data privacy at the physical layer, we redefine covert communication as an active data protection mechanism. We propose a new parasitic covert communication framework in which communication signals are embedded into dynamically generated interference by generative adversarial networks (GANs). This method is implemented by our CDGUBSS (complex double generator unsupervised blind source separation) system. The system is explicitly designed to prevent unauthorized AI-based strategies from analyzing and compromising signals. For the intended recipient, the pretrained generator acts as a trusted key and can perfectly recover the original data. Extensive experiments have shown that our framework achieves powerful covert communication, and more importantly, it provides strong defense against data reconstruction attacks, ensuring excellent data privacy in next-generation wireless systems.

Achieving real-time processing in integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) systems presents significant challenges due to the high computational burden of conventional optimization methods, particularly within intelligent transportation networks (ITN). This paper addresses these challenges by proposing lightweight supervised and unsupervised deep learning (DL) algorithms, respectively for quasi-static and dynamic environments, aiming to improve the secrecy energy efficiency (SEE) of ITN under the constraints of the Cram´er-Rao bound (CRB) for direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation and the transmission rate of each user. By jointly optimizing power allocation and reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) phase shifts, the framework ensures robust physical layer security (PLS) alongside communication efficiency, aligning with defense-in-depth strategies for securing next-generation ITN. For quasi-static environments, a supervised deep neural network (DNN) algorithm leverages offline codebook-generated labels to achieve near-optimal channel state information (CSI) mapping, explicitly minimizing signal leakage to eavesdroppers. In dynamic scenarios, an unsupervised channel attention mechanism-based residual network (CAM-ResNet) eliminates labeling overhead through direct physics-informed SEE optimization with adaptive constraint enforcement, enabling real-time adaptation to rapidly varying channels and evolving security threats. Simulation results demonstrate that both algorithms achieve comparable SEE performance with the zero-forcing (ZF) method, while significantly reducing computational complexity, with the CAM-ResNet demonstrating superior resilience to dynamic security threats. This work contributes to advancing secure and efficient ISAC solutions, reinforcing multi-layered defense mechanisms critical for future ITN.

Satellite communications (SatCom) face fundamental security challenges due to their inherent broadcast nature. To address this, we exploit beyond-diagonal reconfigurable intelligent surface (BD-RIS) to unleash its full-scattering matrix control for enhanced secure beamforming flexibility in SatCom with rate-splitting multiple access (RSMA), where the satellite attempts to convey private signals to legitimate users with blocked direct downlinks and multiple eavesdroppers. To maximize the worst-case secrecy rate among legitimate users, a max-min fairness (MMF) problem is formulated with imperfect wiretap channel state information (CSI) via joint precoding, RIS configuration, and rate splitting optimization. By using the block coordinate descent (BCD) method, these optimization variables are decoupled with different subproblems and solved by the penalty dual decomposition (PDD) method iteratively. Furthermore, we develop a computationally efficient suboptimal solution that employs diagonal RIS (D-RIS) with reduced hardware and computational complexity, where alternating optimization (AO) and successive convex approximation (SCA) methods are employed to solve the non-convex problem. Simulation results demonstrate that our proposed BD-RIS-RSMA scheme achieves significant performance improvements compared to baseline schemes, while the suboptimal diagonal RIS scheme offers a favorable performance-complexity tradeoff.

This paper proposes a parasitic covert communication framework for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), which embeds communication signals into dynamically adaptive interference. Legitimate receivers can extract target signals from parasitic interference, while the eavesdropper fails to accomplish. In a single-channel scenario, we propose a complex dual-generator unsupervised blind source separation (CDGUBSS) method, which implements a novel dual-phase adversarial architecture, namely, signal pre-training phase and adversarial separation phase. The former phase employs complex-valued generative adversarial networks (GANs) to learn latent representations of communication signals, while the latter one introduces a dual-generator dynamic learning mechanism to separate communication signal from the parasitic signals. Extensive experiments demonstrate the superiority of our proposed scheme, which validate its capability to enable robust parasitic covert communication.

To address the critical security challenges posed by the inherent broadcasting nature and heterogeneous service demands in cognitive satellite-terrestrial networks (CSTN), this paper presents a groundbreaking framework that integrates reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS) with sparse code multiple access (SCMA). This framework aims to maximize the achievable secrecy rate by jointly optimizing transmit beamforming, the RIS reflection matrix, and SCMA codebook configurations, while adhering to power constraints and the quality-of-service requirements of legitimate users. To tackle the non-convex optimization problem in complex environments, we develop an intelligent decision-making mechanism based on a modified multi-agent two-delay deep deterministic (MMTD3) algorithm, which introduces a breakthrough mechanism by decoupling continuous beam control from discrete codebook selection, offering a new paradigm for AI-driven cross-domain security optimization in CSTN. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed framework significantly outperforms existing benchmarks, verifying its potential in supporting wireless endogenous security and meeting massive heterogeneous service demands in CSTN.

In the context of future 6G networks, reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS) and non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) are emerging as pivotal technologies for enhancing signal quality and eliminating coverage blind spots. This paper addresses the issue of secure and resilient transmission in RISassisted NOMA systems. Specifically, the base station transmits private signals to multiple legitimate users while dealing with the threat of potential eavesdropping. To model this challenge, we optimize the beamforming vectors and the RIS phase-shift matrix to maximize the sum secrecy rate while satisfying the user quality of service (QoS) requirements and the power constraints of the base station. Since the problem involves high-dimensional variables and non-convex objective functions, it is difficult to be solved by traditional optimization methods. Therefore, the twin delayed deep deterministic policy gradient algorithm (TD3) based on deep reinforcement learning (DRL) is proposed in this paper to effectively address the complexity of the original problem. Numerical results show that the proposed scheme exhibits satisfactory performance in improving communication security, transmission efficiency, and resistance to channel errors.

Aiming to circumvent the low energy efficiency (EE) dilemma of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems induced by employing hundreds of antennas, this paper investigates the potentials of stacked metasurface (SM) and semantic communications (SemCom) for achieving energy-efficient holographic communications in MIMO systems. Specifically, SM enables hybrid beamforming with increased degrees of freedom (DoFs) and reduced energy consumption, while SemCom transmits dramatically compressed key informantion that comes with low power consumption and high EE. To this end, we formulate a worstcase semantic EE (Sem-EE) maximization problem in terms of the transmit beamformer and SM's phase shifts. By proposing a semantic majorization-minimization to handle the fractional and quasi-convex Sem-EE form, quadratically constrained quadratic programs and cyclic coordinate descent can be exploited to solve the optimization variables with low computational complexity. Numerical simulations demonstrate the enhanced EE performance of SMaided semantic beamforming scheme compared to the conventional MIMO systems.

Abstract Traffic prediction serves as a critical foundation for traffic balancing and resource management in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite networks, ultimately enhancing the efficiency of data transmission. The self‐similarity of traffic sequences stands as a key indicator for accurate traffic prediction. In this article, the self‐similarity of satellite traffic data was first analyzed, followed by the construction of a satellite traffic prediction model based on an improved Long Short‐Term Memory (LSTM). An early stopping mechanism was incorporated to prevent overfitting during the model training process. Subsequently, the Diebold‐Mariano (DM) test method was applied to assess the significance of the prediction effect between the proposed model and the comparison model. The experimental results demonstrated that the improved LSTM satellite traffic prediction model achieved the best prediction performance, with Root Mean Squared Error values of 18.351 and 8.828 on the two traffic datasets, respectively. Furthermore, a significant difference was observed in the DM test compared to the other models, providing a solid basis for subsequent satellite traffic planning.

Phased array (PA) has received considerable attention as a representative multiantenna technique due to its inherent advantages of superior directionality, spatial multiplexing capabilities, and robust anti-jamming characteristics. However, PA suffers from relatively high hardware complexity and power consumption. As a low-complexity array technology with excellent beamforming capability, time modulated array (TMA) has attracted much attention in recent years. In this article, we exploit a TMA for enhancing the Age of Information (AoI) of covert communication. Specifically, we first propose the transmitter structures and the corresponding beamforming methods for the TMA scheme and the PA scheme as a benchmark. Subsequently, the closed-form expressions of the Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence is derived to serve as the quantitative measure of communication covertness under both schemes, based on which the average covert AoI (CAoI) is derived to jointly characterize the covertness and timeliness performance. Then, to minimize the average CAoI, the optimization problems of the block-length and beamforming parameters for both the TMA and PA schemes are formulated and solved. Finally, the numerical results are provided to show that the proposed TMA scheme surpasses the PA scheme in terms of both the convergence rate and the average CAoI.

To achieve stringent performance requirements in next generation wireless networks, such as ultra-high data rates, ubiquitous connectivity, and extremely high reliability, this paper proposes a radically novel rate splitting assisted dual-polarized stacked metasurface (RS-DPSM) transceiver architecture. In this architecture, a multi-layer dual-polarized metasurface is stacked at the active antennas and its two inherent polarizations are implemented to enable RS’s common and private messages in parallel. In sharp contrast to the conventional multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) and metasurface-based transceiver designs, our proposed transceiver is capable of enhancing the channel capacity and introducing multi-dimensional degrees of freedom (DoFs) in the power, spatial, and polarization domains, thus enabling multi-functional, broad-spectrum, and all-time/domain/space communications without requiring massive radio-frequency (RF) chains. In addition, we derive new analytical expressions for the upper bounds of RS-DPSM transceiver’s channel capacity and ergodic sum rate, and provide some key insights. To highlight its potential benefits, we apply the proposed RS-DPSM transceiver to anti-jamming communications, and formulate a generalized sum rate maximization problem under the jammer’s imperfect angular channel state information and unknown cross-polarization discrimination. To enable an efficient resource management under the above practical conditions, we present a low-complexity optimization framework by leveraging the discretization method, properties of the quadratic function, reduced-majorization-minimization algorithm, and block successive upper-bound minimization, which admit the semi-closed-form solutions. Finally, our numerical simulations verify the superiority of our proposed transceiver architecture and optimization framework over key benchmarks.

Given the rapid growth of diverse communication demands, future large-scale satellite-aerial-terrestrial integrated networks (SATINs) need to simultaneously provide services to users while guaranteeing spectral efficiency, secrecy and energy efficiency. This paper addresses the problem of maximising secrecy energy efficiency (SEE) in SATINs, which can accurately describe the effective trade-off between security, spectral efficiency and transmit power. Particularly, we investigate a secure beamforming (BF) scheme in cognitive SATINs that employs rate-splitting multiple access (RSMA) and reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) in the presence of multiple eavesdroppers (Eves) in a UAV-aided secondary network (SN). To optimize the SEE for secondary vehicle users while satisfying the constraints of primary users (PUs), we utilize deep reinforcement learning (DRL) to address the coupling between different optimized parameters based on the improved long short-term memory proximal policy optimization (LSTM-PPO) algorithm. The main innovation of this paper is to design a sophisticated reward function, action space, and state space according to each constraint to speed up the convergence. In addition, simulation results show that the proposed DRL-based optimization scheme exhibits significant advantages in terms of SEE compared with benchmark schemes, validating the effectiveness of this work.

The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) aided mobile edge computing (MEC) network has attracted significant attention due to its enhanced computing power, reliable network connectivity, dynamic environment adaptability, which however still suffer from non-instantaneous channel reconstruction and wireless security threats. Therefore, this paper considers a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) assisted UAV-MEC network, aiming to minimize UAV energy consumption by jointly optimizing task offloading rate, user scheduling coefficient, RIS phase and UAV trajectory with the constraints of secure offloading rate. Given the multi-variable coupling and non-convex nature of this optimization problem, we decouple it into three subproblems, which include the user scheduling and offloading ratio optimization, the RIS phase optimization, and the UAV trajectory optimization. For the fractional programming problem involving RIS phase optimization, the Dinkelbach algorithm is used to transform it into a parametric subtraction problem, thus obtaining a closed-form solution for the RIS phases. Furthermore, the successive convex approximation (SCA) algorithm is employed for the UAV trajectory optimization subproblem. Ultimately, a double-layer iterative optimization algorithm based on block coordinate descent (BCD) is proposed to solve the original non-convex optimization problem. Simulation results confirm its superior performance in saving UAV energy compared to other baseline schemes.

Hostile jamming and eavesdropping threats bring severe challenges to reliable and secure communication demands of future networks. In light of the potentials of high-altitude platform (HAP) providing wide communication coverage with low cost and Ad-hoc network facilitating flexible access without support by hardware infrastructure, this paper proposes a multi-HAPs assisted air-terrestrial integrated Ad-hoc networks (HAIN) framework to defend against jamming and eavesdropping simultaneously. Specifically, the HAPs align the beamformer to the terrestrial users while nullifying the reception of eavesdropper. In addition, the Ad-hoc network enables cooperative anti-jamming transmission, where the cooperative users (CUs) provide communication assistance by forming anti-jamming coalition for blocked users (BUs). Building upon this framework, we aim to maximize the sum rate of BUs by jointly optimizing the beamforming and cooperative coalition formation with the imperfect channel state information (CSI). To handle the intractable problem, we first convert the imperfect CSI into the worst-case one, and then a sequential convex approximation combined with first order Taylor series expansion is proposed to optimize the beamforming. Furthermore, for the optimization of anti-jamming coalition formation, we reformulate it as the coalition formation game (CFG) and a partial best coalition preference order is put forward to enhance the sum rate of BUs. With the help of exact potential game (EPG), it’s proved that the CFG can converge to stable coalition formation by exploiting the proposed distributed anti-jamming coalition formation algorithm. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed scheme has the superior secure transmission performance to benchmark schemes.

Due to the users' overlapping channels and the open nature of the wireless medium, inter-user interference and malicious jamming attacks deteriorate the performance of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communications. With this focus, this paper proposes a novel integration of dual polarization, rate-splitting multiple access (RSMA), and stacked reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) transceiver into UAV networks, thus simultaneously mitigating the inter-user interference and malicious interference by fully exploiting their potentials in the power, space, and polarization domains. Building upon this architectural framework, a generalized sum rate maximization problem is formulated under the jammer's imperfect angular channel state information and unknown cross-polarization discrimination. To efficiently tackle the challenges posed by the intractable non-convex design problem with both high-dimensional variables and the multiple QoS constraints, a low-complexity optimization framework is presented, where a discretization method combined with quadratic property, a reduced-majorization-minimization algorithm, and two computationally efficient algorithms using block successive upper-bound minimization are developed to obtain the semi-closed-form solutions. Finally, numerical simulations verify the superiority and validity of our proposed architecture and optimization framework over benchmarks.

The performance of integrated satellite-aerial-terrestrial relay networks (ISATRNs) faces two main challenges, severe signal strength degradation over long transmission distances and limited spectrum resources. To address these issues, we consider the introduction of high altitude platforms (HAPs) and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) carrying reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) as relays during transmission from satellites to the ground. Additionally, we employ rate splitting multiple access (RSMA) at HAPs to improve signal transmission robustness. To optimize system energy efficiency, we formulate a multi-objective problem that considers the active transmit beamforming vector, RIS phase shift, power splitting ratio, and UAV trajectory. To tackle the non-convex problem involving both discrete and continuous variables, we introduce a novel approach called access-free federated deep reinforcement learning (AF-DRL). The optimal transmit beamforming and power splitting ratio are obtained by allowing the UAV to plan its path and locally train, reducing computational overhead caused by high-dimensional UAV movement. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed RSMA-based enhancement scheme achieves higher energy efficiency compared to the comparison scheme.

The reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) has attracted significant research interests recently due to its abilities of dynamic channel reconstruction, flexible deployment and reduced power consumption. However, a malicious RIS can introduce serious signal degradation and even interception risk. This article investigates destructive beamforming design from the perspective of a malicious RIS, where the RIS is active and able to amplify the reflected signals from the base station (BS) to an Internet of Things Device (IoTD). We consider two scenarios where the BS is known and unknown to the identity of malicious RIS, and the objective is to minimize the received signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the IoTD with the constraints of total power budget and RIS signal amplification. To solve the above nonconvex optimization problem, we first propose a low-complexity scheme by integrating several classical beamforming methods with the Taylor expansion approach to solve the original problem for the case of known malicious RIS at BS. While for the unknown malicious RIS case, we propose an alternating optimization scheme by using the successive convex approximation method to obtain the beamforming vector and reflection coefficient matrix iteratively. Finally, numerical results verify that, through the proposed destructive beamforming design, the RIS only brings pain without gain for the signal reception.

Mobile edge computing-assisted integrated aerial-ground network (MEC-IAGN) emerges as a promising key component of the sixth-generation (6G) wireless networks due to its potential capabilities in providing ubiquitous connectivity for global coverage and computing services. However, the inevitable existences of computation-intensive tasks, uncontrollable propagation environment, and malicious jamming attacks pose three significant bottlenecks for enabling efficient MEC-IAGN. With these focuses, we propose a novel framework of multi-functional reconfigurable intelligent surface (MF-RIS) aided semantic anti-jamming communication and computing in MEC-IAGN. Under this framework, a semantic transceiver exhibits inherent robustness and data compression capability, and MF-RIS can customize the full-space wireless environment by leveraging its signal reflection, refraction, amplification, and energy harvesting functions, thereby achieving substantial global coverage, reliable connectivity, and high-rate computing. Based on our proposed framework, we formulate a semantic computation rate maximization problem considering the impacts of jammer’s channel state information (CSI) imperfection, while maintaining the energy partition constraint for computation offloading decision, semantic similarity requirement, semantic computation rate target, and MF-RIS’s self-sustainability. Then, by transforming the imperfect CSI into a worst-case one by exploiting a discretization method, we propose a fast-converging monotonic optimization algorithm that is combined with decoupling second-order cone programming to obtain a globally optimal solution with fewer feasibility evaluations. Furthermore, to strike a satisfactory tradeoff between performance and computational complexity, we develop a suboptimal generalized power iteration algorithm. Numerical simulations demonstrate the superiority of our proposed framework and algorithms compared to various benchmarks.

Integrated satellite-aerial-terrestrial relay networks (ISATRNs) have been considered as a promising architecture for next-generation networks, where high altitude platform (HAP) is pivotal in these integrated networks. In this paper, we introduce a novel model for HAP-based ISATRNs with mixed FSO/RF transmission mode, which incorporates unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) equipped with reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) to dynamically reconfigure the propagation environment and fulfill the massive access requirements of ground users. Our aim is to maximize the system ergodic rate by joint optimizing the UAV trajectory, RIS phase shift, and active transmit beamforming matrix under the constraint of UAV energy consumption. To solve this intractable problem, a deep reinforcement learning (DRL)-based energy efficient optimization scheme by utilizing an improved long short-term memory (LSTM)-double deep Q-network (DDQN) framework is proposed. Numerical results demonstrate the superiority of our proposed algorithm over the traditional DDQN algorithm, on single-step exploration average reward values and other evaluation metrics.

Aiming to circumvent the severe large-scale fading and the energy scarcity dilemma in high-altitude platform (HAP) networks, this paper investigates the benefits of the reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) and simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) on HAP communications. Specifically, we propose a concept of multi-layer refracting RIS-assisted receiver to achieve concurrent transmission of the information and energy, which is conducive to overcoming the severe fading effect induced by extreme long-distance HAP links and fully exploits RIS’s degrees-of-freedom (DoFs) for the SWIPT design. Based on the RIS-enhanced receiver, we then formulate a worst-case sum-rate maximization problem by considering the channel state information (CSI) error, the information rate requirements, and the energy harvesting constraint. To handle the intractable non-convex problem, a scalable robust optimization framework is proposed to obtain semi-closed-form solutions. Specifically, a discretization method is adopted to convert the imperfect CSI into a robust one. Then, by utilizing the LogSumExp inequality to smooth the objective and constraints, we develop a dual method to obtain the optimal solution for the HAP transmit precoder. In addition, a modified cyclic coordinate descent (M-CCD) is adopted to update the block-wise RIS coefficients. Moreover, closed-form solutions for power splitting (PS) ratios and the receive decoder are derived. Finally, the asymptotic performance of our proposed RIS-enhanced receiver is provided to reveal the substantial capacity gain for HAP communications. Numerical simulations demonstrate that the proposed architecture and optimization framework are capable of achieving superior performance with low complexity compared to state-of-the-art schemes in HAP networks.

To overcome the long transmission distances and limited spectrum resources issues, both the space-aerial-terrestrial relay networks (SATRNs) and hybrid-free space optical/radio frequency (FSO/RF) mode have attracted significant attentions. Specifically, high-altitude platform (HAP) and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) are employed in this paper to enhance the transmission reliability and improve the resource utilization along with the reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) and rate splitting multiple access (RSMA) techniques. Besides, we propose a novel access-free federated deep reinforcement learning (DRL) framework, which exploits the privacy-preserving security features of federated learning (FL) and DRL, to optimize active beamforming vectors, RIS reflection coefficients, UAV trajectory, and power splitting ratio. The learning process of the algorithm is performed locally which significantly reduces the computational overhead compared to traditional algorithms. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed federated DRL-aided framework achieves higher energy efficiency compared to the reference schemes.

The utilization of a large-scale antenna array has led to substantial performance improvements in anti-jamming communications. However, due to the practical constraints of hardware cost and power consumption, deploying such a large-scale antenna array at the user side is impractical. Inspired by the remarkable advantages of reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS), we propose an active-passive cascaded RIS-aided receiver architecture that facilitates the cost- and energy-efficient deployment of a large-scale antenna array at the user side, while also providing additional degrees-of-freedom for effective beamforming design. Building upon this architectural framework and taking into account the practical imperfections in the angular channel state information (CSI), we formulate a worst-case achievable rate maximization problem for anti-jamming communications. To address the challenges posed by the intractable non-convex design problem, we present a low-complexity optimization framework that obtains semi-closed-form solutions. Specifically, we first develop a Pareto-dual scheme to handle the general power constraints in devising the optimal precoder for the base station. Subsequently, by introducing a novel anti-jamming criterion and employing the discretization method to transform the imperfect CSI of jammers into a robust form, we derive two jamming-nulling feasibility conditions and a unified unit-modulus zero-forcing scheme to determine the coefficients of the passive RIS. To strike a satisfactory balance between complexity and performance, we further design three computationally-efficient algorithms based on alternating majorization-minimization (AMM) and conventional/modified cyclic coordinate descent (C/M-CCD) methods to obtain the coefficients of the active RIS. Finally, through comprehensive numerical simulations, we validate the effectiveness of the proposed architecture and optimization framework, demonstrating their capacity to achieve exceptional performance in a cost-effective manner.

To mitigate the severe large-scale fading and the energy scarcity problem in long-distance high-altitude platform (HAP) networks, in this paper, we investigate the potentials of a multi-layer refracting reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) -assisted receiver for enabling simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) in HAP networks. Unlike the existing RIS-aided reflector and transmitter, the multi-layer RIS-receiver can well overcome the severe “double fading” effect induced by the extreme long-distance HAP links and fully exploit RIS's degrees-of-freedom (DoFs) for SWIPT design. Building on the proposed RIS-receiver, this paper formulates a worst-case sum rate maximization problem under angular channel state information (CSI) imperfection, while satisfying the information rate requirements of the earth stations (ESs) and the harvested energy constraint. To handle the intractable non-convex problem, a scalable robust optimization framework utilizing the discretization method, LogSumExp-dual scheme, and modified cyclic coordinate descent (M-CCD) is proposed to obtain the semi-closed-form solutions. Numerical simulations demonstrate that the proposed architecture and optimization framework achieve superior performance with lower complexity compared with state-of-the-art schemes in HAP networks.

This paper investigates the covert millimeter wave (mmWave) communication in the finite block-length regime, where spatially random wardens attempt to determine the presence of transmission. First, we derive a novel expression of covertness constraint by using the tools of stochastic geometry, based on which the expression of average effective covert throughput (AECT) is also presented. Then, considering the constraint of maximal available block-length, the optimization problem for maximizing the AECT is formulated, and the optimal transmit power and block-length are analytically determined. Our results show the superiority of our optimization in terms of AECT in contrast to the fixed block-length case, and the improvement is more significant when the density of wardens becomes large. Furthermore, the performance of covert mmWave communication can indeed be improved via increasing the number of antennas even there exist random distributed wardens.

Integrated space-air-ground network (ISAGN) has been regarded as an important infrastructure of the next-generation network, which can offer massive access and seamless connections for users in a wide coverage area. This paper utilizes non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) technique to improve the spectrum efficiency of the ISAGN. Besides, two-way relay technique is introduced in ISAGN to boost the spectrum efficiency. Then, we conducted the ergodic capacity of two-way unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-aided ISAGN with NOMA. We first briefly establish a two-way UAV-aided ISAGN, by considering the imperfect channel state information (CSI) and successive interference cancellation (SIC). To obtain deeper insights, the closed-form expression of ergidic capacity for the considered system is derived. Finally, numerical simulations are provided to evaluate the performance of the system and reveal the impacts of imperfect factors.

The use of a large-scale antenna array has achieved significant performance gains in anti-jamming communications. However, due to the hardware cost and power consumption constraints, it is impractical to deploy such large-scale antenna array at the user side. Inspired by the remarkable advantages of reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS), we propose an active-passive cascaded RIS-aided receiver architecture, which facilitate the deployment of a large-scale antenna array at the user side in a cost- and energy-efficient way and provides additional degree-of-freedom for beamforming design. Building upon this architecture and considering the practical angular channel state information (CSI) imperfection, a worst-case achievable rate maximization problem is formulated for anti-jamming communications. To handle the non-convex problem, a low-complexity optimization framework is proposed, where the new anti-jamming criterion, Pareto-dual scheme, unified unit-modulus zero-forcing scheme, and conventional-cyclic coordinate descent algorithm are developed to obtain the semi-closed-form solutions. Finally, numerical simulations verify that the proposed architecture and optimization framework are capable of achieving excellent performance with low complexity.

Satellite-terrestrial integrated networks (STINs) are troubled with the serious jamming threats in the counterwork environment. Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) approach can not only improve the resource utilization by resource sharing, but also has the potential advantages to be used for anti-jamming. In this paper, under the threat of smart jammer with adaptive jamming policies, we investigate the NOMA-based anti-jamming problem in multi-cell STINs by jointly considering the NOMA-based user grouping in each cell and the beam allocation among multiple cells. Specifically, for each cell, the users can enhance anti-jamming performance and improve the sum rate by NOMA-based users grouping, which is formulated as the anti-jamming Stackelberg game and grouping game to obtain the equilibrium solutions. Then, an adaptive beam allocation algorithm with a low complexity is proposed to avoid allocation conflicts and achieve fairness among multiple cells. Finally, simulation results prove the performance of the proposed scheme.

This article studies secure communication in an Internet of Things (IoT) network, where the confidential signal is sent by an active refracting reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-based transmitter, and a passive reflective RIS is utilized to improve the secrecy performance of users in the presence of multiple eavesdroppers. Specifically, we aim to maximize the weighted sum secrecy rate by jointly designing the power allocation, transmit beamforming (BF) of the refracting RIS, and the phase shifts of the reflective RIS. To solve the nonconvex optimization problem, we propose a linearization method to approximate the objective function into a linear form. Then, an alternating optimization (AO) scheme is proposed to jointly optimize the power allocation factors, BF vector, and phase shifts, where the first one is found using the Lagrange dual method, while the latter two are obtained by utilizing the penalty dual decomposition method. Moreover, considering the demands of green and secure communications, by applying Dinkelbach’s method, we extend our proposed scheme to solving a secrecy energy maximization problem. Finally, simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed design.

In this article, we investigate and analyze energy recycling for a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-aided wireless-powered communication network. As opposed to the existing works where the energy harvested by Internet of Things (IoT) devices only comes from the power station, IoT devices are also allowed to recycle energy from other IoT devices. In particular, we propose group switching- and user switching-based protocols with time-division multiple access to evaluate the impact of energy recycling on the system performance. Two different optimization problems are, respectively, formulated for maximizing the sum throughput by jointly optimizing the energy beamforming vectors, the transmit power, the transmission time, the receive beamforming vectors, the grouping factors, and the phase-shift matrices, where the constraints of the minimum throughput, the harvested energy, the maximum transmit power, the phase shift, the grouping, and the time allocation are taken into account. In light of the intractability of the above problems, we, respectively, develop two alternating optimization-based iterative algorithms by combining the successive convex approximation method and the penalty-based method to obtain corresponding suboptimal solutions. Simulation results verify that the energy recycling-based mechanism can assist in enhancing the performance of IoT devices in terms of energy harvesting and information transmission. Besides, we also verify that the group switching-based algorithm can obtain more sum throughput of IoT devices, and the user switching-based algorithm can harvest more energy.

With the increasing demand of high data rate and massive access in both ultra-dense and industrial Internet-of-things networks, spectral efficiency (SE) and energy efficiency (EE) are regarded as two important and inter-related performance metrics for future networks. In this paper, we investigate a novel integration of rate-splitting multiple access (RSMA) and reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) into cellular systems to achieve a desirable tradeoff between SE and EE. Different from the commonly used passive RIS, we adopt reflection elements with active load to improve a newly defined metric, called resource efficiency (RE), which is capable of striking a balance between SE and EE. This paper focuses on the RE optimization by jointly designing the base station (BS) transmit precoding and RIS beamforming (BF) while guaranteeing the transmit and forward power budgets of the BS and RIS, respectively. To efficiently tackle the challenges for solving the RE maximization problem due to its fractional objective function, coupled optimization variables, and discrete coefficient constraint, the formulated nonconvex problem is solved by proposing a two-stage optimization framework. For the outer stage problem, a quadratic transformation is used to recast the fractional objective into a linear form, and a closed-form solution is obtained by using auxiliary variables. For the inner stage problem, the system sum rate is approximated into a linear function. Then, an alternating optimization (AO) algorithm is proposed to optimize the BS precoding and RIS BF iteratively, by utilizing the penalty dual decomposition (PDD) method. Simulation results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed design compared to other benchmarks.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are attractive in some Internet of Things (IoT) applications, due to their flexible deployment and extended coverage. In this paper, we consider an UAV-assisted network where the UAV flies between the resource-limited sensor nodes (SNs) and collects their status updates. The UAV trajectory and SN scheduling are jointly optimized to minimize the Age of Synchronization (AoS). In contrast to the conventional Age of Information (AoI), AoS takes into account both the freshness and the content of the information, which makes AoS a more suitable design criterion for information collection in an energy-constrained wireless network. Since the formulated problem is challenging to solve due to its non convexity, we reformulate the problem as a Markov decision process (MDP) and propose a deep reinforcement learning (DRL) algorithm to obtain the optimal solution with various action and state spaces. Our simulation results show the fast convergence rate of the proposed DRL algorithm and demonstrate that our proposed scheme can improve the performance of the UAV-assisted network compared to AoI-based schemes.

This paper investigates a joint transmissive and reflective reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS) -aided secure multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system, where both a RIS-assisted transmitter and a RIS-based reflector are deployed to defend against the simultaneous jamming attack and wiretapping threat. Our design focuses on maximizing the sum rate under the unknown jammer’s beamforming, joint RISs’ coupled phase shift errors (PSEs), and spatially-correlated angular channel uncertainties. Besides, we take into account the various quality-of-service (QoS) requirement constraints for guaranteeing the secure performance. Since the problem is non-convex and mathematically intractable, a new optimization framework is established to facilitate the solution development to the formulated problem. Specifically, armed with the Akaike information criterion, a novel diagonalization method is first proposed to estimate the unknown jamming covariance matrix. Then, a series of fractional-eliminated rate expressions is derived that facilitates the application of the proposed Double Deterministic Transformation (DDT) to tackle the coupled stochastic PSEs. Besides, regardless of the spatial correlation matrix, a general discretization method is proposed to convert the e spatially-correlatd angular uncertainties into a worst-case robust one. Subsequently, building upon the above transformations which transform the original problem into tractable one, a two-layer iterative Lagrange multiplier algorithm capitalizing a low-complexity dual method is proposed to obtain the globally optimal solution of the digital precoder, where the multiple QoS constraints are handled without iteration. Meanwhile, we develop a novel polyblock-based multiple penalty method to obtain the globally optimal solutions to RISs’ phase shifts which can simultaneously satisfy the multiple QoS constraints. Moreover, to address the narrow feasibility region induced by the multiple QoS constraints, a heuristic initial optimization method is proposed, which strengthens the existing result. Finally, theoretical analysis and numerical results demonstrate the optimality and the excellent performance of our proposed optimization framework.

To satisfy the explosive access demands of Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices, various kinds of multiple access techniques have received much attention. In this article, we investigate the multicast communication of a satellite and aerial-integrated network (SAIN) with rate-splitting multiple access (RSMA), where both satellite and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) components are controlled by network management center and operate in the same frequency band. Considering a content delivery scenario, the UAV subnetwork adopts the RSMA to support massive access of IoT devices (IoTDs) and achieve desired performances of interference suppression, spectral efficiency, and hardware complexity. We first formulate an optimization problem to maximize the sum rate of the considered system subject to the signal-interference-plus-noise-ratio requirements of IoTDs and per-antenna power constraints at the UAV and satellite. To solve this nonconvex optimization problem, we exploit the sequential convex approximation and the first-order Taylor expansion to convert the original optimization problem into a solvable one with the rank-one constraint, and then propose an iterative penalty function-based algorithm to solve it. Finally, simulation results verify that the proposed method can effectively suppress the mutual interference and improve the system sum rate compared to the benchmark schemes.

In this paper, we investigate secrecy-energy efficient hybrid beamforming (BF) schemes for a satellite-terrestrial integrated network, wherein a multibeam satellite system shares the millimeter wave spectrum with a cellular system. Under the assumption of imperfect angles of departure for the wiretap channels, the hybrid beamformer at the base station and digital beamformers at the satellite are jointly designed to maximize the achievable secrecy-energy efficiency, while satisfying signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio constraints of both the earth stations (ESs) and cellular users. Since the formulated optimization problem is nonconvex and mathematically intractable, we propose two robust BF schemes to obtain approximate solutions with low complexity. Specifically, for the case of a single ES, we integrate the Charnes-Cooper approach with an iterative search algorithm to convert the original nonconvex problem into a solvable one and obtain the BF weight vectors. In the case of multiple ESs, by exploiting the sequential convex approximation method, we convert the original problem into a linear one with multiple matrix inequalities and second-order cone constraints, for which we obtain a solution with satisfactory performance. The effectiveness and superiority of the proposed robust BF design schemes are validated via simulations using realistic satellite and terrestrial downlink channel models.

In this paper, we propose a novel robust downlink beamforming (BF) design for satellite-terrestrial integrated networks. Under a realistic assumption that the angular information of eavesdroppers is not perfectly known, we establish an optimization framework for hybrid BF at the terrestrial base station and digital BF at the satellite to maximize the secrecy-energy efficiency of the system, while satisfying the quality-of-service constraints of both earth station and cellular user. Since the formulated optimization problem is mathematically intractable, we present an iterative algorithm based on the Charnes-Cooper approach to optimize the BF weight vectors. The effectiveness and superiority of the proposed robust hybrid BF scheme are validated via computer simulations.

In this paper, we propose a novel zero-forcing (ZF)- based beamforming (BF) scheme for a wireless powered cognitive satellite-terrestrial network (CSTN) operated in the millimeter wave band. Assuming that the satellite and base station are equipped with multiple antennas, we aim at maximizing the sum rate of the CSTN while satisfying the signal-to-interference-plus-noise- ratio requirements for both the information receivers (IRs) and earth stations, the energy harvesting requirements of the energy receivers (ERs), and the secrecy constraints at the ERs. Since the resulting optimization problem is mathematically intractable, we propose a novel multi-beam-based ZF BF scheme to generate beamforming vectors to serve the IRs and ERs. Specifically, the original nonconvex problem is decomposed into two independent subproblems. The first subproblem, which features beam orthogonality constraints, leads to closed form solutions for the beamforming vectors. The second subproblem, aiming at finding the optimal power allocation, is solved via the S-procedure. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed scheme is demonstrated by simulation results.

This paper proposes a beamforming (BF) scheme with non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) for a cognitive satellite-terrestrial network (CSTN), where the satellite network shares the radio frequency bandwidth with the terrestrial network. By assuming that the satellite adopts multicast technology to serve several satellite terminals (STs), while the base station (BS) employs the combination of BF and NOMA to significantly enhance the spectrum efficiency, we aim at maximizing the sumrate of the considered CSTN under the constraints of per-antenna power budget and the quality of service (QoS) requirements for desired cellular users (CUs) and STs. Then, based on the S-procedure and Taylor approximation approach, we present a method to convert the nonconvex problem to a solvable one with linear constraints, and obtain the optimal BF weight vectors through iterative procedure. Finally, numerical results demonstrate the validity and superiority of our proposed scheme.

This paper investigates the secure transmission in satellite communication systems, where a geostationary orbit (GEO) satellite serves an earth station while multiple eavesdroppers attempt to intercept the confidential message. Assuming that only the imperfect channel state information (CSI) of the wiretap channels are available, we propose a secure beamforming scheme to maximize the secrecy energy efficiency (SEE) of the earth station while satisfying the signal-noise-ratio (SNR) requirement at earth station, the secrecy constraints at eavesdroppers, and per-antenna power constraints at satellite antenna feeds. Since the formulated optimization problem is mathematically intractable, we propose a two-stage beamforming scheme to convert the original nonconvex problem into a solvable one and obtain the beamforming weight vectors. Numerical results are finally provided to verify the effectiveness of our proposed scheme.

In this paper, we investigate the secure communication of a satellite-terrestrial integrated network (STIN). By supposing that the satellite employs multi-beam antenna while the base station (BS) is equipped with a uniform planar array (UPA), we first formulate a joint constrained optimization problem to maximize the sum rate of STIN while satisfying both the quality-of- service (QoS) requirement of the information receivers and earth stations (ESs), the energy harvest (EH) requirement of the energy receivers (ERs), the secrecy constraint at ERs. Since the formulated optimization problem is non-convex and mathematically intractable, we then propose a joint beamforming (BF) scheme to obtain the optimal solutions through an iterative algorithm, which exploits the sequential convex approximation (SCA) and Taylor expansion to convert the original non-convex problem into a solvable one. Finally, simulation results are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed joint BF schemes.

This paper studies the robust secure beamforming (BF) issue of fifth generation (5G) cellular system operating at millimeter wave frequency and coexisting with a satellite network. By employing an uniform planar array at the base station (BS) and assuming known imperfect angle-of-arrival-based channel state informations of multiple eavesdroppers (Eves), a constrained optimization problem is first formulated to maximize the worst-case achievable secrecy rate of the cellular user under the constraints of the transmit power of BS and the interference threshold of satellite earth station. Then, we propose two robust BF methods to solve the complex optimization problem for both coordinated and uncoordinated Eves. For the case of coordinated Eves, we propose a heuristic BF scheme, which transfers the worst-case problem into a min-max one such that the BF weight vectors can be obtained analytically. For uncoordinated Eves, we convert the non-convex problem into a convex one, and further propose an iterative penalty function-based algorithm to obtain the optimal BF weight vectors. Finally, simulation results are provided to confirm the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed robust BF schemes.

This paper investigates the secure communication of a cognitive satellite terrestrial network with software-defined architecture, where a gateway is acting as a control center to offer the resource allocation for the wireless systems. Specifically, we propose beamforming (BF) schemes to utilize the interference from the terrestrial network as a green source to enhance the physical-layer security for the satellite network, provided that the two networks share the portion of millimeter-wave frequencies. Supposing that the satellite employs multibeam antenna while the base station is equipped with a uniform planar array, we first formulate a constrained joint optimization problem to minimize the total transmit power while satisfying both the quality-of-service requirement of the terrestrial user and the secrecy rate (SR) requirements of the satellite users. Since the formulated optimization problem is nonconvex and mathematically intractable, we then propose two BF schemes to obtain the optimal solutions with high computational efficiency. For the case of one eavesdropper (Eve), we present a method to convert the nonconvex SR constraint to a second-order cone one and then adopt a penalty function approach to obtain the BF weight vectors. In the case of multiple Eves, by introducing a list of auxiliary variables, we propose a two-layer iterative BF scheme using penalty function approach together with gradient-based method to calculate the BF weight vectors. Finally, simulation results are given to demonstrate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed BF schemes.

This letter proposes a beamforming (BF) scheme to enhance wireless information and power transfer in terrestrial cellular networks coexisting with satellite networks. By assuming that the energy receivers are the potential eavesdroppers overhearing signals intended for information receivers (IRs), we first formulate a constrained optimization problem to maximize the minimal achievable secrecy rate of the IRs subject to the constraints of energy harvest requirement, interference threshold, and transmit power budget. Through exploiting the sequential convex approximation method, we convert the original problem into a linear one with a series of linear matrix inequality and second-order cone constraints. An iterative algorithm is then proposed to obtain the BF weight vectors. Finally, simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed scheme.

In this paper, we present a robust beamforming (BF) scheme to improve the physical layer security (PLS) of a cognitive satellite terrestrial network (CSTN) at millimeter wave (mmWave) frequency. By employing the standard recommendations and the mmWave propagation model, a PLS framework is first defined for the CSTN in the presence of multiple eavesdroppers (Eves). A constrained optimization problem is then formulated to maximize the worst-case achievable secrecy rate of the cellular user subject to an allowable interference level for the satellite user. By expressing the imperfect Eve''s channel state information (CSI) as a combination of many given angle-of-arrival (AOA) based discrete sets, we propose a method to transform the worst-case optimization problem into a min-max problem and then develop an iterative BF scheme to yield an analytical solution for the weight vectors. Finally, simulation results confirming the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed BF scheme are provided.

In this study, the authors investigate the physical layer security for safeguarding secure transmission in multi‐antenna relaying networks with imperfect channel state information (CSI). Different from traditional strategies in multi‐antenna relaying systems, which would terminate the communication if the relay could not decode the signals successfully, the authors propose robust secure transmission strategy which switches between cooperative jamming (CJ) and decode‐and‐forward (DF) beamforming. Specifically, if the received signal‐to‐noise ratio at the relay is lower than a predefined threshold, it will impose CJ signals on potential eavesdropper, otherwise the relay would operate DF beamforming. The authors’ objective is to maximise secrecy rate and minimise secrecy outage probability in different practical communication scenarios with relaxed or strict time‐delay constraint. Thus, given the unavailability of the perfect eavesdropping CSI, the authors propose a worst‐case robust design and a statistical‐approach robust design based on secrecy rate and secrecy outage criterion, respectively. In addition, a traditional DF robust scheme and a non‐robust scheme are also considered as benchmarks. Simulation results verify that the proposed scheme significantly outperforms the traditional DF robust scheme and the non‐robust scheme.