Joint radar and communication (JRC) is a promising technique for spectrum
re-utilization, which enables radar sensing and data transmission to operate on
the same frequencies and the same devices. However, due to the multi-objective
property of JRC systems, channel allocation to JRC nodes should be carefully
designed to maximize system performance. Additionally, because of the broadcast
nature of wireless signals, a watchful adversary, i.e., a warden, can detect
ongoing transmissions and attack the system. Thus, we develop a covert JRC
system that minimizes the detection probability by wardens, in which friendly
jammers are deployed to improve the covertness of the JRC nodes during radar
sensing and data transmission operations. Furthermore, we propose a robust
multi-item auction design for channel allocation for such a JRC system that
considers the uncertainty in bids. The proposed auction mechanism achieves the
properties of truthfulness, individual rationality, budget feasibility, and
computational efficiency. The simulations clearly show the benefits of our
design to support covert JRC systems and to provide incentive to the JRC nodes
in obtaining spectrum, in which the auction-based channel allocation mechanism
is robust against perturbations in the bids, which is highly effective for JRC
nodes working in uncertain environments