Joint Beamforming and Trajectory Design for Multi-UAV-Assisted Integrated Sensing, Communication, and Power Transfer Networks

Abstract

Integrated Sensing, Communication, and Power Transfer (ISCPT) is a key enabler for sixth-generation networks, enhancing resource utilization to support massive low-power devices. However, existing research has predominantly focused on a single Uncrewed Aerial Vehicle (UAV) in communication and power transfer, lacking the capability to facilitate joint sensing and power transfer of multi-UAVs for moving targets considering estimation errors. To tackle the above challenge, we propose for the first time a multi-UAV-assisted ISCPT algorithm serving both multiple Communication Users (CUs) and Energy Receivers (ERs), featuring a sensing-assisted Wireless Power Transfer (WPT) framework. Specifically, we first derive the Fisher information matrix and Cramér–Rao bound for multi-ER positioning under location uncertainty. Then, we formulate a two-phase optimization problem where sensing directly refines location estimation to achieve robust WPT efficiency maximization. To solve the formulated NP-hard problems, we design a two-phase algorithm by jointly optimizing association scheduling with CUs and ERs, beamforming and trajectory design for UAVs, based on generalized Petersen’s sign-definiteness lemma, Lagrangian relaxation and S-procedure. Numerical results validate that the proposed algorithm achieves a maximum WPT efficiency improvement of 42.3% compared with several representative baseline schemes, demonstrating strong practicality for multi-UAV-assisted ISCPT networks.