Energy-Efficient Design for RIS-assisted UAVcommunications in beyond-5G Networks

TL;DR

This paper proposes an energy-efficient communication framework using RIS-assisted UAVs in beyond-5G networks, optimizing UAV trajectory, RIS phases, and transmission power to reduce energy consumption while maintaining QoS.

Contribution

It introduces a joint optimization method employing Successive Convex Approximation for UAV trajectory, RIS phases, and power control, addressing the complex problem with lower computational complexity.

Findings

Reduced energy consumption in RIS-assisted UAV networks.

Effective joint optimization of UAV trajectory, RIS phases, and power control.

Analytical evaluation under various criteria confirms performance improvements.

Abstract

The usage of Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (RIS) in conjunction with Unmanned Ariel Vehicles (UAVs) is being investigated as a way to provide energy-efficient communication to ground users in dense urban areas. In this paper, we devise an optimization scenario to reduce overall energy consumption in the network while guaranteeing certain Quality of Service (QoS) to the ground users in the area. Due to the complex nature of the optimization problem, we provide a joint UAV trajectory and RIS phase decision to minimize transmission power of the UAV and Base Station (BS) that yields good performance with lower complexity. So, the proposed method uses a Successive Convex Approximation (SCA) to iteratively determine a joint optimal solution for UAV Trajectory, RIS phase and BS and UAV Transmission Power. The approach has, therefore, been analytically evaluated under different sets of criterion.