UAV Control and Communication Enabled Low-Altitude Economy: Challenges, Resilient Architecture and Co-design Strategies

TL;DR

This paper proposes a co-design framework for UAV control and communication to enhance resilience in low-altitude environments, addressing challenges like interference and spectrum scarcity.

Contribution

It introduces a three-layered architecture integrating planning, adaptive control, and resource management for resilient UAV operations.

Findings

The framework improves UAV system resilience in preliminary case studies.

Key enabling technologies for communication and control co-design are detailed.

The architecture addresses coverage holes and interference challenges.

Abstract

The emerging low-altitude economy has catalyzed the large-scale deployment of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), driving a paradigm shift in environment monitoring, logistics, and emergency response. However, operating within these environments presents notable challenges as pervasive coverage holes, unpredictable interference, and spectrum scarcity. To this end, this article present a communication and control co-design framework to enable a resilient architecture for cellular-connected UAVs. Specifically, we first characterize typical service applications and their stringent performance requirements, followed by a comprehensive analysis of the unique challenges. To bridge the gap between volatile wireless links and rigid flight stability, a three layered architecture is proposed, integrating pre-flight strategic planning, in-flight adaptive action, and system-level resource orchestration. Furthermore, we detail the key enabling technologies for communication and control co-design. Preliminary case studies are proposed to validate that the co-design framework significantly improve the resilience of cellular-connected UAV systems, providing a robust foundation for the evolution of intelligent low-altitude networks.