2026· IEEE Transactions on Communications· Vol 74, pp. 11644-11658· 0 citations· 58 references
Computer Science
Abstract
In this paper, we investigate a movable antenna (MA)-assisted uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) swarm communication system. Unlike conventional fixed-position antenna (FPA) systems, each UAV is equipped with an MA array distributed on two hemispherical surfaces at the head and tail, significantly expanding the spatial degrees of freedom (DoFs) in three-dimensional (3-D) seamless coverage. A far-field line-of-sight (LoS) channel model is adopted to characterize the UAV-to-UAV (U2U) communication links, incorporating both antenna positioning and radiation patterns. We formulate an achievable sum rate maximization problem by jointly optimizing the antenna position vectors (APVs) and transmit/receive beamforming vectors, subject to constraints on maximum transmit power, limited antenna moving region, and minimum inter-antenna spacing. To tackle this non-convex and highly coupled problem, we propose a two-loop iterative optimization algorithm that effectively combines the Spider Wasp Optimizer (SWO) for APV optimization and alternative optimization (AO) for beamforming design. Extensive simulation results demonstrate that the proposed MA-assisted scheme outperforms traditional FPA systems and other benchmark algorithms under various settings. The performance gains are attributed to the efficient optimization of antenna positions within the hemispherical moving region for interference suppression and coverage enhancement.
Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed method significantly reduces the time-averaged CRB by over 10%, compared with the ISAC system without UAV assistance, and also achieves a higher sensing accuracy than both the fixed-UAV-trajectory and the maximum-ratio-transmission-based beamforming benchmarks.
Yi Yang, Qianqian Zhang, Huaxia Wang· arXiv.org· 0 citations
This paper studies energy-efficient downlink multi-user transmissions with unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communication systems equipped with stacked intelligent metasurfaces (SIM), enabling wave-domain analog beamforming through multiple cascaded metasurface layers, while low-dimensional digital precoding is carried out using a limited number of transmit radio-frequency chains. This architecture enables flexible electromagnetic wave manipulation with reduced hardware complexity, making it particularly suitable for energy-constrained aerial platforms. We formulate a hardware-aware energy-efficiency (EE) maximization problem aiming to jointly optimize the digital precoder, the phase shifts of all SIM layers, and the three-dimensional UAV position under transmit-power, SIM operation, and UAV deployment constraints. The resulting problem is highly non-convex due to the fractional objective, the cascaded SIM structure and the unit-modulus phase constraints of the constituent metasurface layers, as well as the non-linear UAV-dependent channel. To address these challenges, we develop a transform-based alternating optimization framework that combines Dinkelbach's method, dual and quadratic transforms, to enable closed-form digital beamforming, Riemannian manifold optimization for SIM phase shifts, and successive convex approximation (SCA) for UAV positioning. Convergence and complexity analyses are provided to characterize the proposed algorithm. The presented numerical results showcase that the proposed joint design significantly improves EE compared with fully digital and maximum ratio transmission benchmark schemes, while revealing important design trade-offs among transmit power, SIM size, and the number of its constituent stacked layers.
C. K. Sheemar, Giovanni Iacovelli, Sourabh Solanki et al.· 0 citations
Simulation results demonstrate that UAV placement should be designed not only for desired-link enhancement but also for interference mitigation through geometry-aware user separation through geometry-aware user separation.
Space-air-ground integrated networks (SAGINs) can provide ubiquitous and reliable connectivity for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). However, air-to-ground links, which are typically dominated by line-of-sight (LoS) propagation, are vulnerable to passive eavesdropping due to the broadcast nature of wireless channels. To enhance physical-layer security, we investigate a SAGIN-enabled secure downlink communication system in which UAVs select service links among satellite, aerial, and terrestrial networks while adjusting the positions of the movable antenna (MA) array to fully exploit connectivity and spatial degrees of freedom for improved secrecy communication performance. Specifically, we maximize the secrecy energy efficiency (SEE) of a UAV swarm by jointly optimizing the MA positions, UAV trajectories, and link selections, subject to UAV mobility, MA movement, and link connectivity constraints. To reduce the real-time channel state information (CSI) acquisition overhead, we propose a channel knowledge map (CKM)-assisted multi-agent reinforcement learning framework. Specifically, the CKM is first constructed from sparse channel measurements via Kriging interpolation and is then leveraged together with satellite ephemeris information to enable efficient storage and retrieval of CSI. To reduce the action-space dimensionality and computational complexity, we model the MA array using rigid-body kinematics and adjust its position through global rigid-body translation, thereby constructing a low-dimensional hybrid action space for the joint optimization decisions. To align local decisions with system-wide performance under system constraints, we design an individual-team collaborative reward mechanism and introduce action masks to enforce constraints on UAV mobility, collision avoidance, MA regions, and connectivity capacity.
Jiayang Wan, Ya-Fei Wang, Jiawei Zhuang et al.· 0 citations
This paper investigates the fundamental performance limits of three-dimensional (3D) localization in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-assisted integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) systems. Specifically, a base station (BS) estimates the 3D position of a sensing target with the aid of a UAV acting as a flexible aerial anchor node. We derive a closed-form expression for the 3D Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB), which explicitly quantifies the achievable localization accuracy as a function of both the UAV's location and the target's position. The CRLB is shown to decompose naturally into three distinct components, arising from signal propagation delay, angular measurements, and their coupling effect, respectively. To validate the analytical results, we consider a representative orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM)-based ISAC system and demonstrate that the derived CRLB closely predicts the performance of maximum-likelihood estimation across diverse geometric configurations and UAV mobility patterns. Furthermore, we introduce the notion of CRLB-constrained sensing coverage to characterize the spatial region within which a prescribed localization accuracy can be guaranteed. Through local boundary approximations and coverage-size evaluations, we reveal how UAV displacement, altitude, and the CRLB threshold jointly shape the extent and geometry of the reliable sensing region.
Haoyu Jiang, Hengyou Kong, Xiaoli Xu et al.· 0 citations
An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-enabled ISAC system employing rate-splitting multiple access (RSMA) and a joint beamforming and trajectory optimization framework is investigated and results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm significantly improves the achievable system downlink rate.
Shunxuan Wang, Qi Zhu· Italian National Conference...· 0 citations
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