Robust one-shot estimation over shared networks in the presence of denial-of-service attacks

Abstract: Multi-agent systems often communicate over low-power shared wireless networks in unlicensed spectrum, prone to denial-of-service attacks. We consider the following scenario: multiple pairs of agents communicating strategically over shared communication networks in the presence of a jammer who may launch a denial-of-service. We cast this problem as a game between a coordinator who optimizes the transmission and estimation policies jointly and a jammer who optimizes its probability of performing an attack. We consider two cases: point-to-point channels and large-scale networks with a countably infinite number of sensor-receiver pairs. When the jammer proactively attacks the channel, the game is nonconvex from the coordinator's perspective. However, despite the lack of convexity, we construct a saddle point equilibrium solution for any multi-variate Gaussian distribution for the observations. When the jammer is reactive, we obtain an algorithm based on sequential convex optimization, which converges swiftly to first-order Nash-equilibria. Interestingly, blocking the channel is often optimal when the jammer is reactive, even when it is idle, to create ambiguity at the receiver.