AQUILA: A QUIC-Based Link Architecture for Resilient Long-Range UAV Communication

TL;DR

AQUILA is a novel QUIC-based link architecture designed to enhance the resilience, low-latency, and high-bandwidth communication for UAVs in BVLOS applications, addressing limitations of TCP, UDP, and cellular networks.

Contribution

It introduces a cross-layer architecture with a unified transport layer, priority scheduling, and UAV-adapted congestion control, specifically tailored for UAV communication challenges.

Findings

Significantly reduces C2 latency compared to TCP and UDP.

Improves video quality and link resilience in UAV communications.

Ensures bounded C2 latency regardless of video traffic intensity.

Abstract

The proliferation of autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) applications is critically dependent on resilient, high-bandwidth, and low-latency communication links. Existing solutions face critical limitations: TCP's head-of-line blocking stalls time-sensitive data, UDP lacks reliability and congestion control, and cellular networks designed for terrestrial users degrade severely for aerial platforms. This paper introduces AQUILA, a cross-layer communication architecture built on QUIC to address these challenges. AQUILA contributes three key innovations: (1) a unified transport layer using QUIC's reliable streams for MAVLink Command and Control (C2) and unreliable datagrams for video, eliminating head-of-line blocking under unified congestion control; (2) a priority scheduling mechanism that structurally ensures C2 latency remains bounded and independent of video traffic intensity; (3) a UAV-adapted congestion control algorithm extending SCReAM with altitude-adaptive delay targeting and telemetry headroom reservation. AQUILA further implements 0-RTT connection resumption to minimize handover blackouts with application-layer replay protection, deployed over an IP-native architecture enabling global operation. Experimental validation demonstrates that AQUILA significantly outperforms TCP- and UDP-based approaches in C2 latency, video quality, and link resilience under realistic conditions, providing a robust foundation for autonomous BVLOS missions.