LiLib: Lifelong Air-to-Ground Path-Loss Prediction on UAVs via a Drift-Triggered Model Library

Abstract

UAVs that act as relays or base stations need accurate air-to-ground path-loss predictions for rate adaptation and placement, but propagation conditions change as a UAV moves between suburban, urban and high-rise areas, and the same areas are often revisited. Online regressors that adapt by forgetting must relearn each environment from scratch, whereas a single model trained on all data averages incompatible regimes. We propose LiLib, a lightweight continual-learning scheme in which a UAV maintains a small library of recursive-least-squares experts. A windowed residual test detects drift; a short probe phase then either reuses the best stored expert or creates a new one. In simulations based on four standard urbanization profiles, LiLib reduces prediction RMSE from 5.89 dB (best sliding-window baseline) to 4.03 dB (p < 0.001), lowers the error shortly after a return to a known environment from 12.3 dB to 5.7 dB, and recovers 99% of the throughput of a regime-aware oracle in rate adaptation. The library stores four experts in under 0.5 KB, and identifies regimes with 92% purity without labels. When a second UAV is initialized with the library of a peer, its error after environment changes halves. LiLib does not reach the oracle, and similar regimes may be merged when shadowing is strong. The results indicate that, for recurring drift, remembering is more effective than re-adapting.