RINGS: Mobility-driven Spectrum-Agile Resilient mmWave Communication Links for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Traffic Management in the Sky

随着无人驾驶航空业向高级空中移动(AAM)服务迈进，空中出租车和空中救护车有望在不久的将来成为现实。处理如此大量的无人空中交通需要创新的解决方案，以增强空域的态势感知。美国联邦航空联邦航空管理局设想在500英尺到2000英尺的高度专门为AAM车辆预留空中跑道。空中轨道在十字路口相互交叉，车辆可能需要与其他载人和无人驾驶飞行器共享空域。这需要车辆之间的协调，特别是在近距离相遇期间。这种协调需要高度可靠的通信链路来替代道路上的交通信号。本建议通过研究建立可靠且强大的车到车(V2V)通信链路以支持AAM服务的策略来解决这一关键知识差距。领导这项研究项目的两所机构，北得克萨斯大学和新墨西哥大学，都是拉美裔服务机构(HSI)。随着团队对扩大参与的坚定承诺，该项目的教育举措有助于培训下一代领导人，包括来自代表性不足和少数群体的领导人，促进区域和国家层面的劳动力发展。该项目研究基于毫米波的频谱敏捷可调波束形成战略，以建立可靠和强大的V2V通信链路，以支持空中走廊中的自主飞行操作，以及支持无线电频率和混合信号电路和可操纵的天线。重要的研究贡献包括：(1)调查空中走廊设计和分析，V2V通信的最低操作要求，包括等待时间、安全性、可靠性、频率和数据速率，(2)研究无人机(UAV)的软件定义联网，设计应用层协议，使逻辑网络控制器能够在不稳定的无线网络中管理无人机的物理层功能，(3)研究基于联合学习的在线轨迹规划，以在动态环境中本地调整无人机的加速，(4)设计3D空间空中走廊的频率重用规划，研究基于频谱感知的动态信道分配方法，以最大化网络性能，确保可靠和高效的空中走廊交通管理，以及(5)设计相控阵天线和波束形成，用于使用毫米波段的定向无线数据传输，以及基于无人机估计状态的自适应波束形成策略。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

As the unmanned aviation industry moves towards Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) services, air taxis and air ambulances are expected to become a reality in near future. Handling such a high volume of unmanned air traffic requires innovative solutions for enhanced situational awareness in the airspace. The US Federal Aviation Federal Aviation Administration envisions air tracks specifically reserved for AAM vehicles at altitudes ranging from 500 ft to 2000 ft. Air tracks cross one another at intersections and vehicles may need to share the airspace with other manned and unmanned aerial vehicles. This requires coordination among the vehicles especially during close encounters. Such a coordination requires highly reliable communication links which serve as a substitute for traffic signals on the roads. This proposal addresses this key knowledge gap by investigating strategies for establishing reliable and robust Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communication links to support AAM services. The two institutions leading this research project, the University of North Texas and the University of New Mexico, are both Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs). With the team’s deep commitment towards broadening participation, the educational initiatives of this project help train the next generation of leaders including those from under-represented and minority groups, contributing to the workforce development both at regional and national levels.This project investigates spectrum-agile millimeter wave-based tunable beamforming strategies needed for establishing reliable and robust V2V communications links to support autonomous flight operations in air corridors along with the supporting radio frequency and mixed signal circuits and steerable antennas. Important research contributions include: (1) investigation of air corridor design and analysis, minimum operational requirements including latency, security, reliability, frequency, and data rates for V2V communications, (2) investigation of software-defined networking for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), design of an application layer protocol to enable a logic network controller to manage the physical layer functions of the UAVs in unstable wireless networks, (3) investigation into federated learning-based online trajectory planning to locally adjust the acceleration of a UAV in a dynamic environment, (4) design of frequency-reuse planning for air corridors in 3D space and investigation into spectrum sensing based dynamic channel allocation approaches to maximize network performance, and to ensure reliable and efficient air corridor traffic management, and (5) design of a phased-array antenna and beamforming for the directed wireless data transmission using mm-wave bands, and adaptive beamforming strategies based on the estimated states of the UAVs.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.