Harnessing the Potential of Omnidirectional Multi-Rotor Aerial Vehicles in Cooperative Jamming Against Eavesdropping

TL;DR

This work addresses secure MRAV communications in the presence of eavesdroppers by deploying two omnidirectional MRAVs: MRAV-I acts as an aerial base station and MRAV-J serves as a friendly jammer. The authors formulate a joint pose and transmit-power optimization problem to maximize the expected secrecy rate $E[R(m{ abla})]$, and solve it via a four-phase, iterative scheme that first aligns MRAV-I toward the legitimate user and away from eavesdroppers, then orients MRAV-J to minimize interference, followed by power and 3D-position optimization with Monte Carlo estimation to handle attitude jitter. The approach leverages the omnidirectional MRAVs' ability to independently control position and orientation, incorporating jitter in the optimization and using an interior-point method for constrained positioning. Simulations show significant secrecy-rate gains over benchmarks under various scenarios, including jitter and eavesdropper-position uncertainty, demonstrating the practical potential of orientation-aware cooperative jamming for secure MRAV networks in 5G/6G contexts.

Abstract

Recent research in communications-aware robotics has been propelled by advancements in 5G and emerging 6G technologies. This field now includes the integration of Multi-Rotor Aerial Vehicles (MRAVs) into cellular networks, with a specific focus on under-actuated MRAVs. These vehicles face challenges in independently controlling position and orientation due to their limited control inputs, which adversely affects communication metrics such as Signal-to-Noise Ratio. In response, a newer class of omnidirectional MRAVs has been developed, which can control both position and orientation simultaneously by tilting their propellers. However, exploiting this capability fully requires sophisticated motion planning techniques. This paper presents a novel application of omnidirectional MRAVs designed to enhance communication security and thwart eavesdropping. It proposes a strategy where one MRAV functions as an aerial Base Station, while another acts as a friendly jammer to secure communications. This study is the first to apply such a strategy to MRAVs in scenarios involving eavesdroppers.

Figures (4)

• Figure 1: Illustration of two MRAV configurations along with the global ($\mathcal{F}_W$) and untilted ($\mathcal{F}_U$) reference systems: under-actuated (left) and omnidirectional (right) Aboudorra2023JINT. Arcs represent the rotation direction of servos used for varying the thrust vector.
• Figure 2: A schematic representation of the $\mathcal{X}_i$ and $\mathcal{G}_i$ planes along with the eavesdroppers, the legitimate user (located at the origin $O$), and the MRAV-I.
• Figure 3: Final 3D positions obtained using the interior-point method, combined jammer orientation and interior-point method, and our proposed approach for scenarios with 2 eavesdroppers.
• Figure 4: Secrecy rate as a function of maximum power.