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Integrated Sensing, Communication and Control enabled Agile UAV Swarm

Zhiqing Wei, Yucong Du, Zhiyong Feng, Haotian Liu, Yanpeng Cui, Tao Zhang, Ying Zhou, Huici Wu

TL;DR

This paper tackles the fragmentation of sensing, communication, and control in UAV swarms by introducing an integrated sensing, communication and control (ISCC) framework. It formalizes the ISCC paradigm, analyzes three deployment scenarios (disaster relief, aerial base stations, and logistics), and defines concrete metrics to evaluate performance across sensing, communication, and control. It then presents three enabling technology families: (i) communication-and-control-enhanced sensing, (ii) sensing-and-control-enhanced communication, and (iii) sensing-and-communication-enhanced control, detailing mechanisms such as proactive channel estimation, cooperative sensing fusion, multi-domain resource allocation, and cooperative collision avoidance. Performance evaluations demonstrate improvements in spectrum efficiency, neighbor discovery, routing latency, target detection, and collision avoidance, validating ISCC as a viable pathway toward agile UAV swarms for the low-altitude economy.

Abstract

Uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) swarms are pivotal in the applications such as disaster relief, aerial base station (BS) and logistics transportation. These scenarios require the capabilities in accurate sensing, efficient communication and flexible control for real-time and reliable task execution. However, sensing, communication and control are studied independently in traditional research, which limits the overall performance of UAV swarms. To overcome this disadvantage, we propose a deeply coupled scheme of integrated sensing, communication and control (ISCC) for UAV swarms, which is a systemic paradigm that transcends traditional isolated designs of sensing, communication and control by establishing a tightly-coupled closed-loop through the co-optimization of sensing, communication and control. In this article, we firstly analyze the requirements of scenarios and key performance metrics. Subsequently, the enabling technologies are proposed, including communication-and-control-enhanced sensing, sensing-and-control-enhanced communication, and sensing-and-communication-enhanced control. Simulation results validate the performance of the proposed ISCC framework, demonstrating its application potential in the future.

Integrated Sensing, Communication and Control enabled Agile UAV Swarm

TL;DR

This paper tackles the fragmentation of sensing, communication, and control in UAV swarms by introducing an integrated sensing, communication and control (ISCC) framework. It formalizes the ISCC paradigm, analyzes three deployment scenarios (disaster relief, aerial base stations, and logistics), and defines concrete metrics to evaluate performance across sensing, communication, and control. It then presents three enabling technology families: (i) communication-and-control-enhanced sensing, (ii) sensing-and-control-enhanced communication, and (iii) sensing-and-communication-enhanced control, detailing mechanisms such as proactive channel estimation, cooperative sensing fusion, multi-domain resource allocation, and cooperative collision avoidance. Performance evaluations demonstrate improvements in spectrum efficiency, neighbor discovery, routing latency, target detection, and collision avoidance, validating ISCC as a viable pathway toward agile UAV swarms for the low-altitude economy.

Abstract

Uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) swarms are pivotal in the applications such as disaster relief, aerial base station (BS) and logistics transportation. These scenarios require the capabilities in accurate sensing, efficient communication and flexible control for real-time and reliable task execution. However, sensing, communication and control are studied independently in traditional research, which limits the overall performance of UAV swarms. To overcome this disadvantage, we propose a deeply coupled scheme of integrated sensing, communication and control (ISCC) for UAV swarms, which is a systemic paradigm that transcends traditional isolated designs of sensing, communication and control by establishing a tightly-coupled closed-loop through the co-optimization of sensing, communication and control. In this article, we firstly analyze the requirements of scenarios and key performance metrics. Subsequently, the enabling technologies are proposed, including communication-and-control-enhanced sensing, sensing-and-control-enhanced communication, and sensing-and-communication-enhanced control. Simulation results validate the performance of the proposed ISCC framework, demonstrating its application potential in the future.
Paper Structure (27 sections, 6 figures)

This paper contains 27 sections, 6 figures.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Scenarios, requirements and performance metrics
  3. Scenarios and Requirements
  4. Disaster Relief
  5. Aerial BS
  6. Logistics Transportation
  7. Performance Metrics
  8. Communication Performance Metrics
  9. Sensing Performance Metrics
  10. Control Performance Metrics
  11. Communication-and-Control-Enhanced Sensing for UAV Swarms
  12. Communication-Enhanced Sensing Signal Design
  13. Communication-Enhanced Sensing Signal Processing
  14. Control-Enhanced Sensing for UAV Swarms
  15. Sensing-and-Control-Enhanced Communication for UAV Swarms
  16. ...and 12 more sections

Figures (6)

  • Figure 1: Scenarios of ISCC UAV swarms.
  • Figure 2: Communication-and-control-enhanced sensing for disaster relief scenario: (a) the communication-enhanced sensing signal design; (b) the communication-enhanced sensing signal processing; (c) the control-enhanced sensing for UAV swarms.
  • Figure 3: Sensing-and-control-enhanced communication for aerial BS scenario.
  • Figure 4: Sensing-and-communication-enhanced control for logistics transportation scenario.
  • Figure 5: Performance evaluation of UAV Swarms: (a) the ARMSE of communication-and-control-enhanced sensing for UAV Swarms; (b) the accuracy of neighbor list in ISCC-enabled neighbor discovery; (c) the update time of routing table in ISCC-enabled routing.
  • ...and 1 more figures