2026· IEEE Transactions on Cognitive Communications and Networking· Vol 12, pp. 10916-10931· 0 citations· 40 references
Computer Science
Abstract
The rapid expansion of real-time Internet of Things (IoT) applications has positioned uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) as a promising solution for flexible and timely data collection in areas lacking robust infrastructure. This paper investigates a UAV-assisted secure status updating system, where a UAV serves as a mobile relay to forward status updating packets from ground devices (GDs) under the threat of a potential eavesdropper. To ensure information freshness and operational sustainability, we formulate a long-term stochastic optimization problem to minimize the cumulative average age-of-information (AoI) of all GDs and energy consumption of the UAV. The formulated optimization problem is an online mixed-integer non-linear programming problem, which involves the joint optimization of the flight speed, direction, and transmission power of the UAV as well as the binary scheduling indicator of GDs. To tackle the inherent non-convexity and complex spatial-temporal coupling, we propose an agentic artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled deep reinforcement learning (DRL) approach, named adaptive truncated quantile critics with large language models (LLM)-enabled state representation and reward function design (ATQC-L). Specifically, an adaptive truncated quantile mechanism is incorporated to mitigate distributional overestimation in dynamic environments. Furthermore, we leverage the reasoning capability of LLMs as an offline design-time agent to generate task-aware state representation and intrinsic reward functions. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed ATQC-L algorithm outperforms representative DRL baselines in balancing information freshness and energy consumption of the UAV, while maintaining stable performance under different network scales, LLM backbones, truncation-parameter settings, imperfect eavesdropping channel state information, and mobile eavesdropping scenarios.
This paper forms a multi-objective optimization problem aimed at minimizing AoI and energy consumption while maximizing the eavesdropper’s Bit Error Rate by jointly optimizing UAV trajectories, time scheduling, and jamming parameters and develops an efficient iterative algorithm.
Xiujuan Zhang, Yujiao Han, Shiyu Wang et al.· 0 citations
Low-altitude uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) communication offers notable advantages over terrestrial base stations in terms of flexibility and deployment efficiency. However, the high likelihood of line-of-sight (LoS) propagation renders the communication links between UAVs and ground users (GUs) particularly susceptible to eavesdropping. To address this issue, we consider an intelligent reflecting surface (IRS)-assisted low-altitude UAV secure communication system, in which communication security is strengthened through adaptive control of the wireless propagation environment, even when eavesdroppers are present. We aim to maximize the secrecy rate of GUs while minimizing the UAV energy consumption by jointly optimizing the continuous UAV trajectory, power allocation, and discrete IRS phase shifts. Considering the dynamic, non-convex, and NP-hard nature of the optimization problem, we propose an agentic artificial intelligence (AI) approach, namely alternating optimization (AO) and generative diffusion model-based deep deterministic policy gradient (AO-GDMDDPG) approach. The proposed agentic AI approach is composed of two cooperative agents that operate over a hybrid and high-dimensional decision space, in which the UAV agent adopts a generative AI (GenAI)-enhanced deep reinforcement learning (DRL) method to optimize continuous decision variables, whereas the IRS agent relies on the AO method to determine discrete IRS phase shifts. Simulation results demonstrate the superiority of the AO-GDMDDPG approach over benchmark algorithms with respect to secrecy rate improvement and UAV energy consumption reduction.
Wenwen Xie, Geng Sun, Jiahui Li et al.· IEEE Transactions on Cogniti...· 0 citations
The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-assisted Internet-of-Things (IoT) network architecture has emerged as a key technology for supporting communications in emergency scenarios. The quality and freshness of the data collected by UAVs directly impact the effectiveness of emergency decision-making and the overall responsiveness of the system in time-critical situations. However, limited by the battery capacity of UAVs, a fundamental tradeoff exists between information freshness and energy consumption in UAV-assisted IoT networks, which constrains the effective coverage range of emergency operations. Accordingly, this paper explores the inherent trade-off between Age of Information (AoI) and energy consumption in UAV-assisted emergency IoT systems. To reflect the highly dynamic and uncertain channel conditions typical of post-disaster environments, this work further incorporates an imperfect channel state information (CSI) model. Then, a probabilistic constraint AoI-energy tradeoff problem is formulated to jointly optimizing the time allocation of data collection, UAV trajectory, and duration of time slots. To address the resulting non-convex non-linear problem, we first convert the probabilistic constraint problem into a non-probability one, then employ a block coordinate descent method to iteratively solve the highly coupled multi-variable problem. Finally, comprehensive simulation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Mingan Luan, Xin Zhang, Zheng Chang et al.· IEEE Transactions on Green C...· 0 citations
Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-assisted Internet of Things (IoT) data collection is a promising solution for timely information acquisition in post-disaster scenarios with damaged terrestrial infrastructure. However, freshness-aware UAV trajectory planning is challenging due to the coupled effects of heterogeneous ground node priorities, Age of Information (AoI) evolution, continuous UAV control, and safety risks caused by no-fly zones and initially unknown obstacles. In this letter, we formulate the safety-constrained weighted AoI minimization problem as a constrained Markov decision process (CMDP) and propose a safety-constrained twin delayed deep deterministic policy gradient (SC-TD3) algorithm with Lagrangian safety optimization to decouple the AoI-oriented objective from long-term safety-risk control and adaptively balance information freshness and safety risk during policy learning. Simulation results show that SC-TD3 achieves higher accumulated reward and reduces mean weighted AoI by 64.3%–78.2% and 67.1%–73.6% in the CN-ratio and GN-scale tests, respectively, while reducing mean total safety cost by 61.4%–75.6% compared with the strongest benchmark algorithm.
Jinghao Wang, Xu Wang, Jihao Luo et al.· IEEE Wireless Communications...· 0 citations
This work investigates the secrecy performance of a dual-uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV)-assisted secure ISAC system, and maximizes the average secrecy rate by optimizing user scheduling strategies, time allocation, transmit power, and UAV trajectories.
Hongjiang Lei, Jianshuo Geng, Ki-Hong Park et al.· 1 citation
Integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) technology, when deployed on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), enables aerial base stations to simultaneously provide wireless connectivity to ground users and perform environmental sensing through echo signal analysis. However, the broadcast nature of wireless transmission, combined with the line-of-sight (LoS) propagation characteristics of UAVs, increases the risk of passive eavesdropping on transmitted signals during ISAC missions. This paper investigates the joint trajectory design and power allocation (JTDPA) problem for UAV-enabled ISAC systems in environments with multiple mobile ground users and potential eavesdroppers. The proposed approach formulates the optimization problem as a constrained Markov decision process (CMDP), aiming to balance communication rate, secrecy rate, and energy consumption. To address the limitations of existing secure trajectory designs, such as unnecessary energy expenditure and overly conservative avoidance actions, we propose a two-stage (TS) strategy that incorporates the safe twin delayed deep deterministic policy gradient (Safe-TD3) algorithm, referred to as TS-SafeTD3. In the first stage (sensing stage), the UAV navigates toward a user-centric location without communication to enhance initial coverage efficiency, while satisfying the minimum-distance safety constraints with respect to potential eavesdroppers.In the second stage (ISAC stage), Safe-TD3 is employed to jointly optimize both trajectory and power allocation under the same safety constraints to maximize the weighted secrecy rate. Simulation results indicate that the proposed algorithm improves the weighted secrecy rate and energy efficiency under various operational conditions, while maintaining a low violation probability of the safety constraints.
Yu-Jia Chen, Hai-Yan Huang, Ting-Wei Chen et al.· IEEE Transactions on Network...· 0 citations
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