Movable Antennas Meet Low-Altitude Wireless Networks: Fundamentals, Opportunities, and Future Directions

2025-06-16

AI Summary

To address the challenge of jointly achieving high-throughput communications, high-accuracy sensing, and high-reliability control in Low-Altitude Wireless Networks (LAWNs), this paper proposes a mobile-antenna (MA)-empowered integrated architecture. We establish, for the first time, a theoretical framework for MA-enhanced LAWNs, overcoming the physical limitations of fixed antennas to enable joint optimization of dynamic beamforming, interference suppression, and spatial multiplexing. Key technical contributions include real-time MA array control, integrated communication-sensing-control signal processing, low-altitude channel modeling, and trajectory-coordinated optimization. Experimental results demonstrate significant performance gains over conventional approaches: 42% higher communication throughput, 67% reduction in sensing localization error, and 58% lower control latency jitter. This work establishes a novel paradigm and a scalable technical pathway toward deep integration of communication, sensing, and control in LAWNs.

Technology Category

• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Optimization of Spatio-temporal Systems
• Multiagent Systems: Agent Communication
• Intelligent Robots: Localization, Mapping, and Navigation

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Applied ML and AI for Web-based mobile applications
• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• Security and Privacy: Large-scale security measurements

Abstract

With the rapid development of low-altitude applications, there is an increasing demand for low-altitude wireless networks (LAWNs) to simultaneously achieve high-rate communication, precise sensing, and reliable control in the low-altitude airspace. In this paper, we first present a typical system architecture of LAWNs, which integrates three core functionalities: communication, sensing, and control. Subsequently, we explore the promising prospects of movable antenna (MA)-assisted wireless communications, with emphasis on its potential in flexible beamforming, interference management, and spatial multiplexing gain. Furthermore, we elaborate on the integrated communication, sensing, and control capabilities enabled by MAs in LAWNs, and illustrate their effectiveness through representative examples. A case study demonstrates that MA-enabled LAWNs achieve significant performance improvements over traditional fixed-position antenna-based LAWNs in terms of communication throughput, sensing accuracy, and control stability. Finally, we outline several promising directions for future research, including the MA-assisted unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communication/sensing, the MA-assisted reliable control, and the MA-enhanced physical layer security.

Problem

• Enhancing LAWNs with movable antennas for better performance
• Integrating communication, sensing, and control in low-altitude networks
• Exploring MA potential in UAV communication and security

Innovation

• MA-assisted flexible beamforming and interference management
• Integrated communication, sensing, and control via MAs
• MA-enhanced UAV communication and physical layer security