Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface-Aided Joint Radar and Covert Communications: Fundamentals, Optimization, and Challenges

Future wireless communication systems will evolve toward multifunctional integrated systems to improve spectrum utilization and reduce equipment sizes. Joint radar and communication (JRC) systems, which can support simultaneous information transmission and target detection, have 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 apply covert communication to JRC and propose a joint radar and covert communication (JRCC) system to simultaneously achieve high spectrum utilization and secure data transmission.