Sensing-Communication-Computing-Control Closed Loop for NOMA-UAV Systems

In the areas without terrestrial communication infrastructures,unmanned aerial vehicles(UAVs)can be utilized to serve field robots for mission-critical tasks.For this purpose,UAVs can be equipped with sensing,communication,and computing modules to support various requirements of robots.In the task process,different modules assist the robots to perform tasks in a closed-loop way,which is referred to as a sensing-communication-computing-control(SC3)loop.In this work,we investigate a UAV-aided system containing multiple SC^(3)loops,which leverages non-orthogonal multiple access(NOMA)for efficient resource sharing.We describe and compare three different modelling levels for the SC^(3)loop.Based on the entropy SC^(3)loop model,a sum linear quadratic regulator(LQR)control cost minimization problem is formulated by optimizing the communication power.Further for the assure-to-be-stable case,we show that the original problem can be approximated by a modified user fairness problem,and accordingly gain more insights into the optimal solutions.Simulation results demonstrate the performance gain of using NOMA in such task-oriented systems,as well as the superiority of our proposed closed-loop-oriented design.

Cooperative UAV search strategy based on DMPC-AACO algorithm in restricted communication scenarios

Improvement of integrated battlefield situational awareness in complex environments involving dynamic factors such as restricted communications and electromagnetic interference(EMI)has become a contentious research problem.In certain mission environments,due to the impact of many interference sources on real-time communication or mission requirements such as the need to implement communication regulations,the mission stages are represented as a dynamic combination of several communication-available and communication-unavailable stages.Furthermore,the data interaction between unmanned aerial vehicles(UAVs)can only be performed in specific communication-available stages.Traditional cooperative search algorithms cannot handle such situations well.To solve this problem,this study constructed a distributed model predictive control(DMPC)architecture for a collaborative control of UAVs and used the Voronoi diagram generation method to re-plan the search areas of all UAVs in real time to avoid repetition of search areas and UAV collisions while improving the search efficiency and safety factor.An attention mechanism ant-colony optimization(AACO)algorithm is proposed for UAV search-control decision planning.The search strategy is adaptively updated by introducing an attention mechanism for regular instruction information,a priori information,and emergent information of the mission to satisfy different search expectations to the maximum extent.Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm achieves better search performance than traditional algorithms in restricted communication constraint scenarios.

Received Power Based Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) Jamming Detection and Nodes Classification Using Machine Learning

This paper presents a machine-learning method for detecting jamming UAVs and classifying nodes during jamming attacks onWireless Sensor Networks(WSNs).Jamming is a type of Denial of Service(DoS)attack and intentional interference where a malicious node transmits a high-power signal to increase noise on the receiver side to disrupt the communication channel and reduce performance significantly.To defend and prevent such attacks,the first step is to detect them.The current detection approaches use centralized techniques to detect jamming,where each node collects information and forwards it to the base station.As a result,overhead and communication costs increased.In this work,we present a jamming attack and classify nodes into different categories based on their location to the jammer by employing a single node observer.As a result,we introduced a machine learning model that uses distance ratios and power received as features to detect such attacks.Furthermore,we considered several types of jammers transmitting at different power levels to evaluate the proposed metrics using MATLAB.With a detection accuracy of 99.7%for the k-nearest neighbors(KNN)algorithm and average testing accuracy of 99.9%,the presented solution is capable of efficiently and accurately detecting jamming attacks in wireless sensor networks.

A method to interpret fracture aperture of rock slope using adaptive shape and unmanned aerial vehicle multi-angle nap-of-the-object photogrammetry

The aperture of natural rock fractures significantly affects the deformation and strength properties of rock masses,as well as the hydrodynamic properties of fractured rock masses.The conventional measurement methods are inadequate for collecting data on high-steep rock slopes in complex mountainous regions.This study establishes a high-resolution three-dimensional model of a rock slope using unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV)multi-angle nap-of-the-object photogrammetry to obtain edge feature points of fractures.Fracture opening morphology is characterized using coordinate projection and transformation.Fracture central axis is determined using vertical measuring lines,allowing for the interpretation of aperture of adaptive fracture shape.The feasibility and reliability of the new method are verified at a construction site of a railway in southeast Tibet,China.The study shows that the fracture aperture has a significant interval effect and size effect.The optimal sampling length for fractures is approximately 0.5e1 m,and the optimal aperture interpretation results can be achieved when the measuring line spacing is 1%of the sampling length.Tensile fractures in the study area generally have larger apertures than shear fractures,and their tendency to increase with slope height is also greater than that of shear fractures.The aperture of tensile fractures is generally positively correlated with their trace length,while the correlation between the aperture of shear fractures and their trace length appears to be weak.Fractures of different orientations exhibit certain differences in their distribution of aperture,but generally follow the forms of normal,log-normal,and gamma distributions.This study provides essential data support for rock and slope stability evaluation,which is of significant practical importance.

Nonlinear direct data-driven control for UAV formation flight system

This paper proposes the nonlinear direct data-driven control from theoretical analysis and practical engineering,i.e.,unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV)formation flight system.Firstly,from the theoretical point of view,consider one nonlinear closedloop system with a nonlinear plant and nonlinear feed-forward controller simultaneously.To avoid the complex identification process for that nonlinear plant,a nonlinear direct data-driven control strategy is proposed to design that nonlinear feed-forward controller only through the input-output measured data sequence directly,whose detailed explicit forms are model inverse method and approximated analysis method.Secondly,from the practical point of view,after reviewing the UAV formation flight system,nonlinear direct data-driven control is applied in designing the formation controller,so that the followers can track the leader’s desired trajectory during one small time instant only through solving one data fitting problem.Since most natural phenomena have nonlinear properties,the direct method must be the better one.Corresponding system identification and control algorithms are required to be proposed for those nonlinear systems,and the direct nonlinear controller design is the purpose of this paper.

IRS Assisted UAV Communications against Proactive Eavesdropping in Mobile Edge Computing Networks

In this paper,we consider mobile edge computing(MEC)networks against proactive eavesdropping.To maximize the transmission rate,IRS assisted UAV communications are applied.We take the joint design of the trajectory of UAV,the transmitting beamforming of users,and the phase shift matrix of IRS.The original problem is strong non-convex and difficult to solve.We first propose two basic modes of the proactive eavesdropper,and obtain the closed-form solution for the boundary conditions of the two modes.Then we transform the original problem into an equivalent one and propose an alternating optimization(AO)based method to obtain a local optimal solution.The convergence of the algorithm is illustrated by numerical results.Further,we propose a zero forcing(ZF)based method as sub-optimal solution,and the simulation section shows that the proposed two schemes could obtain better performance compared with traditional schemes.

Outage Analysis of Optimal UAV Cooperation with IRS via Energy Harvesting Enhancement Assisted Computational Offloading

The utilization of mobile edge computing(MEC)for unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV)communication presents a viable solution for achieving high reliability and low latency communication.This study explores the potential of employing intelligent reflective surfaces(IRS)andUAVs as relay nodes to efficiently offload user computing tasks to theMEC server system model.Specifically,the user node accesses the primary user spectrum,while adhering to the constraint of satisfying the primary user peak interference power.Furthermore,the UAV acquires energy without interrupting the primary user’s regular communication by employing two energy harvesting schemes,namely time switching(TS)and power splitting(PS).The selection of the optimal UAV is based on the maximization of the instantaneous signal-to-noise ratio.Subsequently,the analytical expression for the outage probability of the system in Rayleigh channels is derived and analyzed.The study investigates the impact of various system parameters,including the number of UAVs,peak interference power,TS,and PS factors,on the system’s outage performance through simulation.The proposed system is also compared to two conventional benchmark schemes:the optimal UAV link transmission and the IRS link transmission.The simulation results validate the theoretical derivation and demonstrate the superiority of the proposed scheme over the benchmark schemes.

Remote sensing image encryption algorithm based on novel hyperchaos and an elliptic curve cryptosystem

Remote sensing images carry crucial ground information,often involving the spatial distribution and spatiotemporal changes of surface elements.To safeguard this sensitive data,image encryption technology is essential.In this paper,a novel Fibonacci sine exponential map is designed,the hyperchaotic performance of which is particularly suitable for image encryption algorithms.An encryption algorithm tailored for handling the multi-band attributes of remote sensing images is proposed.The algorithm combines a three-dimensional synchronized scrambled diffusion operation with chaos to efficiently encrypt multiple images.Moreover,the keys are processed using an elliptic curve cryptosystem,eliminating the need for an additional channel to transmit the keys,thus enhancing security.Experimental results and algorithm analysis demonstrate that the algorithm offers strong security and high efficiency,making it suitable for remote sensing image encryption tasks.

Multi-UAVs Collaborative Path Planning in the Cramped Environment

Due to its flexibility and complementarity, the multiUAVs system is well adapted to complex and cramped workspaces, with great application potential in the search and rescue(SAR) and indoor goods delivery fields. However, safe and effective path planning of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles(UAVs)in the cramped environment is always challenging: conflicts with each other are frequent because of high-density flight paths, collision probability increases because of space constraints, and the search space increases significantly, including time scale, 3D scale and model scale. Thus, this paper proposes a hierarchical collaborative planning framework with a conflict avoidance module at the high level and a path generation module at the low level. The enhanced conflict-base search(ECBS) in our framework is improved to handle the conflicts in the global path planning and avoid the occurrence of local deadlock. And both the collision and kinematic models of UAVs are considered to improve path smoothness and flight safety. Moreover, we specifically designed and published the cramped environment test set containing various unique obstacles to evaluating our framework performance thoroughly. Experiments are carried out relying on Rviz, with multiple flight missions: random, opposite, and staggered, which showed that the proposed method can generate smooth cooperative paths without conflict for at least 60 UAVs in a few minutes.The benchmark and source code are released in https://github.com/inin-xingtian/multi-UAVs-path-planner.

Method for Improving Digital Elevation Model Precision of Consumer Level Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Currently,the aerial survey system of low-altitude unmanned aerial vehicles(UAVs)has been widely used in acquiring digital map 4D products,mapping,digital linear maps,and other aspects.However,there are problems,such as low precision and weak practicability in constructing digital elevation model(DEM)products through the data collected using consumption level UAVs.Therefore,improving the accuracy of DEM products obtained by consumption level UAVs is a crucial and complex issue in the research of UAV aerial survey systems.In precision elevation measurement,the geodetic height of a certain number of ground points with reasonable distribution in the region is often obtained first.Then,the normal height of the ground points is obtained by leveling,and the elevation residual value surface of the region is fitted.Finally,the normal height of the points to be solved in the region is obtained by fitting the elevation residual surface.Therefore,the elevation residual fitting method was used to improve the accuracy of consumer UAV DEM products in this study.First,a high-quality ground point cloud was obtained by constructing the gradient filtering-cloth simulation filtering(GF-CSF)model.Second,an abnormal elevation fitting residual DEM model was constructed.Lastly,the final DEM was obtained using the DEM difference method.The experimental results show that among the 20 random sampling inspection points,the average elevation residual was 2.3 mm,and the root mean square error(RMSE)was 16.7 mm after the DEM accuracy was improved by the method.The average elevation residual without improving the DEM accuracy was 28.6 mm,and RMSE was 33.7 mm.

Energy-efficient joint UAV secure communication and 3D trajectory optimization assisted by reconfigurable intelligent surfaces in the presence of eavesdroppers

We consider a scenario where an unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV),a typical unmanned aerial system(UAS),transmits confidential data to a moving ground target in the presence of multiple eavesdroppers.Multiple friendly reconfigurable intelligent surfaces(RISs) help to secure the UAV-target communication and improve the energy efficiency of the UAV.We formulate an optimization problem to minimize the energy consumption of the UAV,subject to the mobility constraint of the UAV and that the achievable secrecy rate at the target is over a given threshold.We present an online planning method following the framework of model predictive control(MPC) to jointly optimize the motion of the UAV and the configurations of the RISs.The effectiveness of the proposed method is validated via computer simulations.

Heat transfer and temperature evolution in underground mininginduced overburden fracture and ground fissures: Optimal time window of UAV infrared monitoring

Heat transfer and temperature evolution in overburden fracture and ground fissures are one of the essential topics for the identification of ground fissures via unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV) infrared imager. In this study, discrete element software UDEC was employed to investigate the overburden fracture field under different mining conditions. Multiphysics software COMSOL were employed to investigate heat transfer and temperature evolution of overburden fracture and ground fissures under the influence of mining condition, fissure depth, fissure width, and month alternation. The UAV infrared field measurements also provided a calibration for numerical simulation. The results showed that for ground fissures connected to underground goaf(Fissure Ⅰ), the temperature difference increased with larger mining height and shallow buried depth. In addition, Fissure Ⅰ located in the boundary of the goaf have a greater temperature difference and is easier to be identified than fissures located above the mining goaf. For ground fissures having no connection to underground goaf(Fissure Ⅱ), the heat transfer is affected by the internal resistance of the overlying strata fracture when the depth of Fissure Ⅱ is greater than10 m, the temperature of Fissure Ⅱ gradually equals to the ground temperature as the fissures’ depth increases, and the fissures are difficult to be identified. The identification effect is most obvious for fissures larger than 16 cm under the same depth. In spring and summer, UAV infrared identification of mining fissures should be carried out during nighttime. This study provides the basis for the optimal time and season for the UAV infrared identification of different types of mining ground fissures.

Estimation and verification of green tide biomass based on UAV remote sensing

Since 2007,the Yellow Sea green tide has broken out every summer,causing great harm to the environment and society.Although satellite remote sensing(RS)has been used in biomass research,there are several shortcomings,such as mixed pixels,atmospheric interference,and difficult field validation.The biomass of green tide has been lacking a high-precision estimation method.In this study,high-resolution unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV)RS was used to quantitatively map the biomass of green tides.By utilizing experimental data from previous studies,a robust relationship was established to link biomass to the red-green-blue floating algae index(RGB-FAI).Then,the lab-based model for green tide biomass from visible images taken by the UAV camera was developed and validated by field measurements.Re sults show that the accurate and cost-effective method is able to estimate the green tide biomass and its changes in given local waters of the near and far seas.The study provided an effective complement to the traditional satellite RS,as well as high-precision quantitative techniques for decision-making in disaster management.

UAV maneuvering decision-making algorithm based on deep reinforcement learning under the guidance of expert experience

Autonomous umanned aerial vehicle(UAV) manipulation is necessary for the defense department to execute tactical missions given by commanders in the future unmanned battlefield. A large amount of research has been devoted to improving the autonomous decision-making ability of UAV in an interactive environment, where finding the optimal maneuvering decisionmaking policy became one of the key issues for enabling the intelligence of UAV. In this paper, we propose a maneuvering decision-making algorithm for autonomous air-delivery based on deep reinforcement learning under the guidance of expert experience. Specifically, we refine the guidance towards area and guidance towards specific point tasks for the air-delivery process based on the traditional air-to-surface fire control methods.Moreover, we construct the UAV maneuvering decision-making model based on Markov decision processes(MDPs). Specifically, we present a reward shaping method for the guidance towards area and guidance towards specific point tasks using potential-based function and expert-guided advice. The proposed algorithm could accelerate the convergence of the maneuvering decision-making policy and increase the stability of the policy in terms of the output during the later stage of training process. The effectiveness of the proposed maneuvering decision-making policy is illustrated by the curves of training parameters and extensive experimental results for testing the trained policy.

A Novel Tensor Decomposition-Based Efficient Detector for Low-Altitude Aerial Objects With Knowledge Distillation Scheme

Unmanned aerial vehicles(UAVs) have gained significant attention in practical applications, especially the low-altitude aerial(LAA) object detection imposes stringent requirements on recognition accuracy and computational resources. In this paper, the LAA images-oriented tensor decomposition and knowledge distillation-based network(TDKD-Net) is proposed,where the TT-format TD(tensor decomposition) and equalweighted response-based KD(knowledge distillation) methods are designed to minimize redundant parameters while ensuring comparable performance. Moreover, some robust network structures are developed, including the small object detection head and the dual-domain attention mechanism, which enable the model to leverage the learned knowledge from small-scale targets and selectively focus on salient features. Considering the imbalance of bounding box regression samples and the inaccuracy of regression geometric factors, the focal and efficient IoU(intersection of union) loss with optimal transport assignment(F-EIoU-OTA)mechanism is proposed to improve the detection accuracy. The proposed TDKD-Net is comprehensively evaluated through extensive experiments, and the results have demonstrated the effectiveness and superiority of the developed methods in comparison to other advanced detection algorithms, which also present high generalization and strong robustness. As a resource-efficient precise network, the complex detection of small and occluded LAA objects is also well addressed by TDKD-Net, which provides useful insights on handling imbalanced issues and realizing domain adaptation.

Cooperative Anti-Jamming and Interference Mitigation for UAV Networks: A Local Altruistic Game Approach

To improve the anti-jamming and interference mitigation ability of the UAV-aided communication systems, this paper investigates the channel selection optimization problem in face of both internal mutual interference and external malicious jamming. A cooperative anti-jamming and interference mitigation method based on local altruistic is proposed to optimize UAVs’ channel selection. Specifically, a Stackelberg game is modeled to formulate the confrontation relationship between UAVs and the jammer. A local altruistic game is modeled with each UAV considering the utilities of both itself and other UAVs. A distributed cooperative anti-jamming and interference mitigation algorithm is proposed to obtain the Stackelberg equilibrium. Finally, the convergence of the proposed algorithm and the impact of the transmission power on the system loss value are analyzed, and the anti-jamming performance of the proposed algorithm can be improved by around 64% compared with the existing algorithms.

Real-time UAV path planning based on LSTM network

To address the shortcomings of single-step decision making in the existing deep reinforcement learning based unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV)real-time path planning problem,a real-time UAV path planning algorithm based on long shortterm memory(RPP-LSTM)network is proposed,which combines the memory characteristics of recurrent neural network(RNN)and the deep reinforcement learning algorithm.LSTM networks are used in this algorithm as Q-value networks for the deep Q network(DQN)algorithm,which makes the decision of the Q-value network has some memory.Thanks to LSTM network,the Q-value network can use the previous environmental information and action information which effectively avoids the problem of single-step decision considering only the current environment.Besides,the algorithm proposes a hierarchical reward and punishment function for the specific problem of UAV real-time path planning,so that the UAV can more reasonably perform path planning.Simulation verification shows that compared with the traditional feed-forward neural network(FNN)based UAV autonomous path planning algorithm,the RPP-LSTM proposed in this paper can adapt to more complex environments and has significantly improved robustness and accuracy when performing UAV real-time path planning.

Road Traffic Monitoring from Aerial Images Using Template Matching and Invariant Features

Road traffic monitoring is an imperative topic widely discussed among researchers.Systems used to monitor traffic frequently rely on cameras mounted on bridges or roadsides.However,aerial images provide the flexibility to use mobile platforms to detect the location and motion of the vehicle over a larger area.To this end,different models have shown the ability to recognize and track vehicles.However,these methods are not mature enough to produce accurate results in complex road scenes.Therefore,this paper presents an algorithm that combines state-of-the-art techniques for identifying and tracking vehicles in conjunction with image bursts.The extracted frames were converted to grayscale,followed by the application of a georeferencing algorithm to embed coordinate information into the images.The masking technique eliminated irrelevant data and reduced the computational cost of the overall monitoring system.Next,Sobel edge detection combined with Canny edge detection and Hough line transform has been applied for noise reduction.After preprocessing,the blob detection algorithm helped detect the vehicles.Vehicles of varying sizes have been detected by implementing a dynamic thresholding scheme.Detection was done on the first image of every burst.Then,to track vehicles,the model of each vehicle was made to find its matches in the succeeding images using the template matching algorithm.To further improve the tracking accuracy by incorporating motion information,Scale Invariant Feature Transform(SIFT)features have been used to find the best possible match among multiple matches.An accuracy rate of 87%for detection and 80%accuracy for tracking in the A1 Motorway Netherland dataset has been achieved.For the Vehicle Aerial Imaging from Drone(VAID)dataset,an accuracy rate of 86%for detection and 78%accuracy for tracking has been achieved.

Energy Efficiency Maximization in Mobile Edge Computing Networks via IRS assisted UAV Communications

In this paper,we investigate the energy efficiency maximization for mobile edge computing(MEC)in intelligent reflecting surface(IRS)assisted unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV)communications.In particular,UAVcan collect the computing tasks of the terrestrial users and transmit the results back to them after computing.We jointly optimize the users’transmitted beamforming and uploading ratios,the phase shift matrix of IRS,and the UAV trajectory to improve the energy efficiency.The formulated optimization problem is highly non-convex and difficult to be solved directly.Therefore,we decompose the original problem into three sub-problems.We first propose the successive convex approximation(SCA)based method to design the beamforming of the users and the phase shift matrix of IRS,and apply the Lagrange dual method to obtain a closed-form expression of the uploading ratios.For the trajectory optimization,we propose a block coordinate descent(BCD)based method to obtain a local optimal solution.Finally,we propose the alternating optimization(AO)based overall algorithmand analyzed its complexity to be equivalent or lower than existing algorithms.Simulation results show the superiority of the proposedmethod compared with existing schemes in energy efficiency.

Ground target localization of unmanned aerial vehicle based on scene matching

In order to improve target localization precision,accuracy,execution efficiency,and application range of the unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV)based on scene matching,a ground target localization method for unmanned aerial vehicle based on scene matching(GTLUAVSM)is proposed.The sugges-ted approach entails completing scene matching through a feature matching algorithm.Then,multi-sensor registration is optimized by robust estimation based on homologous registration.Finally,basemap generation and model solution are utilized to improve basemap correspondence and accom-plish aerial image positioning.Theoretical evidence and experimental verification demonstrate that GTLUAVSM can improve localization accuracy,speed,and precision while minimizing reliance on task equipment.