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Reshaping UAV-Enabled Communications with Omnidirectional Multi-Rotor Aerial Vehicles

Daniel Bonilla Licea, Giuseppe Silano, Hajar El Hammouti, Mounir Ghogho, Martin Saska

TL;DR

The paper addresses the limitation of conventional MRAVs in simultaneously controlling 3D position and orientation for aerial communications. It introduces omnidirectional MRAVs (o-MRAVs) with active tilting and independent attitude control, provides a six-DoF dynamic model, and presents an eight-propeller cube design guiding rotor speeds, spin directions, and tilt angles. Through comparative analysis and simulation, it demonstrates superior hovering, trajectory tracking, and rotor-failure robustness over u-MRAVs and f-MRAVs, and showcases use cases in physical-layer security, RF-source localization, aerial FSO, THz/mmWave links, and dense-network capacity, including jamming/eavesdropping mitigation scenarios. The findings highlight o-MRAVs as a promising platform for more resilient, secure, and flexible aerial communication networks, while outlining energy, design, and trajectory-beamforming challenges that guide future research.

Abstract

A new class of Multi-Rotor Aerial Vehicles (MRAVs), known as omnidirectional MRAVs (o-MRAVs), has attracted significant interest in the robotics community. These MRAVs have the unique capability of independently controlling their 3D position and 3D orientation. In the context of aerial communication networks, this translates into the ability to control the position and orientation of the antenna mounted on the MRAV without any additional devices tasked for antenna orientation. This additional Degrees of Freedom (DoF) adds a new dimension to aerial communication systems, creating various research opportunities in communications-aware trajectory planning and positioning. This paper presents this new class of MRAVs and discusses use cases in areas such as physical layer security and optical communications. Furthermore, the benefits of these MRAVs are illustrated with realistic simulation scenarios. Finally, new research problems and opportunities introduced by this advanced robotics technology are discussed.

Reshaping UAV-Enabled Communications with Omnidirectional Multi-Rotor Aerial Vehicles

TL;DR

The paper addresses the limitation of conventional MRAVs in simultaneously controlling 3D position and orientation for aerial communications. It introduces omnidirectional MRAVs (o-MRAVs) with active tilting and independent attitude control, provides a six-DoF dynamic model, and presents an eight-propeller cube design guiding rotor speeds, spin directions, and tilt angles. Through comparative analysis and simulation, it demonstrates superior hovering, trajectory tracking, and rotor-failure robustness over u-MRAVs and f-MRAVs, and showcases use cases in physical-layer security, RF-source localization, aerial FSO, THz/mmWave links, and dense-network capacity, including jamming/eavesdropping mitigation scenarios. The findings highlight o-MRAVs as a promising platform for more resilient, secure, and flexible aerial communication networks, while outlining energy, design, and trajectory-beamforming challenges that guide future research.

Abstract

A new class of Multi-Rotor Aerial Vehicles (MRAVs), known as omnidirectional MRAVs (o-MRAVs), has attracted significant interest in the robotics community. These MRAVs have the unique capability of independently controlling their 3D position and 3D orientation. In the context of aerial communication networks, this translates into the ability to control the position and orientation of the antenna mounted on the MRAV without any additional devices tasked for antenna orientation. This additional Degrees of Freedom (DoF) adds a new dimension to aerial communication systems, creating various research opportunities in communications-aware trajectory planning and positioning. This paper presents this new class of MRAVs and discusses use cases in areas such as physical layer security and optical communications. Furthermore, the benefits of these MRAVs are illustrated with realistic simulation scenarios. Finally, new research problems and opportunities introduced by this advanced robotics technology are discussed.

Paper Structure

This paper contains 16 sections, 5 figures, 1 table.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. o-MRAV: Design, Modeling and Control
  3. Comparative evaluation of o-MRAV capabilities
  4. Challenges and open problems
  5. Use Cases
  6. Physical layer security
  7. Localization of RF sources
  8. Aerial FSO communications
  9. THz and mmWave communications
  10. Capacity enhancement in dense areas
  11. Simulation Experiments: o-MRAV for Jamming and Eavesdropping Mitigation
  12. Enhancing security against jamming with o-MRAV
  13. Friendly jammer o-MRAV against eavesdroppers
  14. Discussion and Future Research Directions
  15. Conclusions
  16. ...and 1 more sections

Figures (5)

  • Figure 1: Illustration of u-MRAV and o-MRAV configurations with the global and untilted reference frames Aboudorra2023JINT. Arcs indicate servo rotation for thrust vector adjustment.
  • Figure 2: o-MRAV use cases.
  • Figure 3: (a) An o-MRAV communicating with a legitimate user in the presence of a jammer, (b) a friendly jammer disrupting eavesdroppers.
  • Figure 4: Minimum SINR for different jamming powers.
  • Figure 5: Secrecy rate versus maximum power for 2 eavesdroppers.