Low-Altitude Fluid Antenna Network with Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning
Organizations: Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Aerospace Communication and Networking Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen, 518055, China · Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen, China · Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen 518055, China · School of Information and Communication Engineering, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing 100876, China ·
Abstract
Low-altitude wireless networks (LAWNs) integrate terrestrial and aerial platforms to provide ubiquitous communication, sensing, and localization services for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. However, dynamic air-ground and air-air channels, abrupt blockages, and heterogeneous interference hinder the realization of this goal. Nevertheless, fluid antenna (FA), a cutting-edge multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) technique, overcomes these challenges by reconfiguring antenna positions to unlock additional spatial degrees-of-freedom. In this paper, towards bringing low-altitude FA networks into reality, we study the fast and high-performance FA reconfiguration for low-altitude FA networks with multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL). Specifically, we present an electromagnetic digital twin (EM-DT)-assisted MARL framework. To fill the sim-to-real gap, we introduce a two-stage transfer learning framework. Our case study shows that joint FA positions and beamforming optimization can enhance the system sum-rate by 118.5%, compared to the fixed position baseline. This gain comes from the dynamic millisecond timescale reconfiguration of FA arrays and the adaptive steering of beams toward aerial users with mobility.
Figures & tables
| FA Reconfiguration Overhead | CSI Usage Reduction | Trustworthy MARL | EM-DT Fidelity | Heterogeneous Time-Scale | System Support for Artificial Intelligence | |
| Open Issues | Reconfiguration cost & budget | CSI overhead CSI aging | Black-box policy Certification barriers | Static maps Dynamic blockages | Different dynamics Time-scale mismatch | Heterogeneous data values |
| Future Directions | Predictive positioning & hardware co-design | CSI prediction by EM-DT | Safe MARL Certification testbeds | Surrogate models Online calibration | Hierarchical MARL Asynchronous training | Task-oriented end-to-end design |
| Tong Zhang [M] ([email protected]) received the B.S. degree from Northwest University, Xi’an, China, in 2012, the M.S. degree from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing, China, in 2015, and the Ph.D. degree in electronic engineering from The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, in 2020. He was a Post-Doctoral Fellow with the Southern University of Science and Technology from 2020 to 2022. He was a Lecturer with the Department of Electronic Engineering, Jinan University. He is currently an Assistant Professor with Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen. His research interests include fluid antenna systems and reinforcement learning. |
| Yanfei Su ([email protected]) received the B.S. degree in communication engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT), Weihai, China. She is currently pursuing the M.S. degree in information and communication engineering with HIT, Shenzhen, China. Her research interests include fluid antenna systems and reinforcement learning. |
| Shuai Wang [M] ([email protected]) received the B.Eng. and M. Eng. degrees from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications ( BUPT), in 2011 and 2014 respectively, and the Ph.D. degree from University of Hong Kong (HKU) in 2018. He is now a Professor with the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology (SIAT), Chinese Academy of Sciences, where he leads the Intelligent Networked Vehicle Systems (INVS) Laboratory. His research intrests include robot learning and networked intelligence. |
| Wanli Ni [M] ([email protected]) is currently an Assistant Professor with the School of Information and Communication Engineering, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT), China. He received the B.Eng. degree in 2018 and the Ph.D. degree in 2023, both from BUPT. From 2022 to 2023, he was a visiting student at the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. From 2023 to 2025, he was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Tsinghua University, China. His research interests include federated learning, large AI models, spectrum sensing, and satellite communications. |
| Chengzhong Xu [F] ([email protected]) received the Ph.D. degree from the University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, in 1993. He has held Faculty positions with Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA, and the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China. He is currently the Chair Professor of computer science with the University of Macau, Macau, China. He is also the Dean of Faculty of Information Science and Computing and the Director of Institute of AI and Brain Sciences. His research interests include cloud and edge for AI, autonomous driving, and intelligent transportation. |
| Hüseyin Arslan [F] ([email protected]) is currently the Dean of the School of Engineering and Natural Sciences at Istanbul Medipol University, Türkiye. He received his bachelor’s degree from Middle East Technical University, Türkiye, in 1992, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Southern Methodist University, USA, in 1994 and 1998, respectively. From 1998 to 2002, he was with Ericsson Research, where he worked on 2G and 3G wireless communication systems. From 2002 to 2022, he was with the University of South Florida, USA, where he served as a Professor of Electrical Engineering. In 2013, he joined Istanbul Medipol University and contributed to the establishment of its engineering school. He has also held various academic, industrial, and advisory roles and has served on the editorial boards of several IEEE journals. His research interests include 6G and beyond wireless communications, waveform design, spectrum sharing, physical-layer security, interference management, non-terrestrial networks, and integrated sensing and communication. |
Wireless Communications
Wireless communications studies how information is sent over radio links and how networks manage signals, spectrum, and resources reliably.
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