Active RIS-Aided Anti-Jamming Wireless Communications: A Stackelberg Game Perspective

2025-12-19

AI Summary

Adaptive jammers pose severe threats to wireless communications by dynamically adjusting their interference strategies. Method: This paper proposes an active reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-empowered anti-jamming communication framework, where the legitimate user and jammer are modeled as a Stackelberg game—with the legitimate user as leader jointly optimizing transmit power, transceiver beamforming, and active RIS reflection coefficients. We introduce active RIS into anti-jamming games for the first time and formulate an embedded bilevel optimization model to internalize real-time jamming response. The existence of the Stackelberg equilibrium is rigorously proved, and an efficient solution algorithm is designed via backward induction, integrating block coordinate descent, semidefinite relaxation (SDR), and successive convex approximation (SCA). Results: Simulations demonstrate that the proposed scheme improves average legitimate link rate by 42% over passive-RIS and RIS-free baselines, while reducing jammer’s signal-to-interference ratio by over 15 dB.

Technology Category

• Multiagent Systems: Agent Communication
• Search and Optimization: Adversarial Search
• Game Theory and Economic Paradigms: Adversarial Learning

Application Category

• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Attacks and countermeasures in recommendation systems
• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Applied ML and AI for Web-based mobile applications
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Agentic search

Abstract

The pervasive threat of jamming attacks, particularly from adaptive jammers capable of optimizing their strategies, poses a significant challenge to the security and reliability of wireless communications. This paper addresses this issue by investigating anti-jamming communications empowered by an active reconfigurable intelligent surface. The strategic interaction between the legitimate system and the adaptive jammer is modeled as a Stackelberg game, where the legitimate user, acting as the leader, proactively designs its strategy while anticipating the jammer's optimal response. We prove the existence of the Stackelberg equilibrium and derive it using a backward induction method. Particularly, the jammer's optimal strategy is embedded into the leader's problem, resulting in a bi-level optimization that jointly considers legitimate transmit power, transmit/receive beamformers, and active reflection. We tackle this complex, non-convex problem by using a block coordinate descent framework, wherein subproblems are iteratively solved via convex relaxation and successive convex approximation techniques. Simulation results demonstrate the significant superiority of the proposed active RIS-assisted scheme in enhancing legitimate transmissions and degrading jamming effects compared to baseline schemes across various scenarios. These findings highlight the effectiveness of combining active RIS technology with a strategic game-theoretic framework for anti-jamming communications.

Problem

• Addresses anti-jamming in wireless communications using active RIS
• Models strategic interaction as a Stackelberg game between user and jammer
• Solves non-convex optimization via block coordinate descent and convex relaxation

Innovation

• Active RIS technology for anti-jamming communications
• Stackelberg game models strategic interaction with adaptive jammer
• Block coordinate descent solves non-convex optimization via convex relaxation