Frequency-aware Trajectory and Power Control for Multi-UAV Systems

Abstract

Deploying large numbers of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) within a region can result in an overcrowded radio frequency (RF) spectrum, requiring UAVs to coordinate frequency selection and mobility to prevent data loss. Current work in interference coordination for multi-UAV systems reduces interference through the use of either trajectory and power control or channel assignments, but not both. We propose a novel controller which selects channels, creates trajectories, and controls transmit power for each UAV to increase the networking capacity of a multi-UAV system. Results show that the proposed controller yields 27% increased network capacity over state of the art UAV frequency reuse algorithms, 152% increased network capacity over state of the art UAV trajectory and power controllers, and 135% faster control overall.