Search for Articles:
Title / Keyword
Author / Affiliation / Email
Journal
Article Type
 
 
Advanced Search
 
Section
Special Issue
Volume
Issue
Number
Page
 
7.4
4.8
Journals
Drones
Special Issues
Technologies and Applications of UAV Channel Models in Communications and...
share announcement

Technologies and Applications of UAV Channel Models in Communications and Spectrum Awareness: 2nd Edition

A special issue of Drones (ISSN 2504-446X). This special issue belongs to the section "Drone Communications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 10 December 2025 | Viewed by 796

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Qiuming Zhu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Electronic and Information Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, China
Interests: UAV channel modeling; UAV channel hardware emulation; spectrum sensing and mapping; UAV communications
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. César Briso-Rodríguez

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Telecommunication Engineering, Technical University of Madrid, 28031 Madrid, Spain
Interests: channel modeling; UAV technologies; antenna design
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Mou Chen

grade E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Automatic Control, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, China
Interests: control systems engineering; electrical engineering; aerospace engineering
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Zhenyu Na

E-Mail
Guest Editor
School of Information Science and Technology, Dalian Maritime University, Dalian 116026, China
Interests: space-air-ground networks; UAV communications; MEC; AI based communications
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Kai Mao

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Electronic and Information Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 211106, China
Interests: UAV channel sounding; UAV channel modeling; radar sensing
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to announce this Special Issue of Drones on “Technologies and Applications of UAV Channel Models in Communications and Spectrum Awareness: 2nd Edition”.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have become significant tools in various domains, including communication, spectrum sensing, and environmental monitoring. To ensure robust data transmission in these applications, a deep understanding and accurate description of UAV channel models is fundamental for designing a reliable communication system, which can ensure the reliability and stability of UAV-related navigation, remote control, remote sensing, and data transmission. This Special Issue aims to highlight the recent advancements in UAV channel techniques and their applications across diverse disciplines, especially communication and spectrum awareness. Furthermore, this issue is dedicated to promoting a multidisciplinary dialogue among researchers and policymakers, shedding light on future directions in UAV technologies and applications. The focus is on enhancing UAV capabilities for communication and spectrum awareness.

This Special Issue will cover, but is not limited to, the following topics:

  • Channel sounding technologies and system for A2G scenarios
  • UAV channel models for mmWave and sub-Terahertz bands.
  • AI-driven channel modelling technologies.
  • AI-driven UAV control technologies.
  • UAV integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) systems.
  • UAV-aided spectrum sensing and awareness.
  • UAV mmWave communications technologies.
  • UAV trajectory planning and optimization.
  • Other applications of UAV channel model and communication.

We look forward to receiving your original research articles and reviews.

Prof. Dr. Qiuming Zhu
Prof. Dr. César Briso-Rodríguez
Prof. Dr. Mou Chen
Prof. Dr. Zhenyu Na
Dr. Kai Mao
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Drones is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • UAV channel model
  • UAV channel sounding
  • UAV ISAC
  • UAV communication
  • UAV spectrum sensing
  • UAV trajectory planning

Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue

  • Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
  • Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
  • Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
  • External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
  • Reprint: MDPI Books provides the opportunity to republish successful Special Issues in book format, both online and in print.

Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Related Special Issue

Published Papers (2 papers)

Download All Papers
Order results
Result details
Show export options expand_more Show export options expand_less
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

20 pages, 16915 KB  
Article
Cluster Characteristics Analysis of UAV Air-to-Air Channels Based on Ray Tracing and Wasserstein Generative Adversarial Network with Gradient Penalty
by Liwei Han, Xiaomin Chen, Boyu Hua, Qingzhe Deng, Kai Mao, Weizhi Zhong and Qiuming Zhu
Drones 2025, 9(8), 586; https://doi.org/10.3390/drones9080586 - 18 Aug 2025
Viewed by 273
Abstract
Air-to-air (A2A) communication plays a vital role in low-altitude unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) networks and demands accurate channel modeling to support system analysis and design. A key challenge in A2A channel modeling lies in extracting reliable cluster characteristics, which are often limited due [...] Read more.
Air-to-air (A2A) communication plays a vital role in low-altitude unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) networks and demands accurate channel modeling to support system analysis and design. A key challenge in A2A channel modeling lies in extracting reliable cluster characteristics, which are often limited due to the scarcity of measurement data. To overcome this limitation, a cluster characteristic analysis method is proposed for UAV A2A channels in built-up environments. First, we reconstruct virtual urban environments, followed by the acquisition of A2A channel data using ray tracing (RT) techniques. Then, a kernel power density (KPD) clustering algorithm is applied to group the multipath components (MPCs). To enhance the modeling accuracy of intra-cluster angular offsets in both elevation and azimuth domains, a Wasserstein generative adversarial network with gradient penalty (WGAN-GP) is further introduced for generative modeling. A comprehensive analysis is conducted on key cluster characteristics, including the intra-cluster number of MPCs, intra-cluster delay and angular spreads, number of clusters, and angular distributions. The numerical results demonstrate that the proposed WGAN-GP-based approach achieves superior angular fitting accuracy compared to conventional empirical distribution methods. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Technologies and Applications of UAV Channel Models in Communications and Spectrum Awareness: 2nd Edition)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

20 pages, 4156 KB  
Article
A Model-Driven Multi-UAV Spectrum Map Fast Fusion Method for Strongly Correlated Data Environments
by Shengwen Wu, Hui Ding, He Li, Zhipeng Lin, Jie Zeng, Qianhao Gao, Weizhi Zhong and Jun Zhou
Drones 2025, 9(8), 582; https://doi.org/10.3390/drones9080582 - 17 Aug 2025
Viewed by 194
Abstract
Spectrum map fusion has emerged as an effective technique to enhance the accuracy of spectrum map construction. However, many existing fusion methods fail to address the strong correlation between spectrum data, resulting in sub-optimal performance. In this paper, we propose a new multi-unmanned [...] Read more.
Spectrum map fusion has emerged as an effective technique to enhance the accuracy of spectrum map construction. However, many existing fusion methods fail to address the strong correlation between spectrum data, resulting in sub-optimal performance. In this paper, we propose a new multi-unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) spectrum map fusion method based on differential ridge regression. We first construct spectrum maps of UAVs by using differential features of spectrum data. Next, we present a spectrum map fusion model by leveraging the spatial distribution characteristic of spectrum data. To reduce the sensitivity of the fusion model to the strongly correlated data, a new map fusion regularization term is designed, which introduces l2-norm to constrain the fusion regularization parameters and compress the ridge regression coefficient sizes. As a result, accurate spectrum maps can be constructed for the environments with highly correlated spectrum data. We then formulate a model-driven solution to the spectrum map fusion problem and derive its lower bound. By combining the propagation characteristics of the spectrum signal with the developed Lagrange duality, we can guarantee the convergence of map fusion processing while enhancing the convergence rate. Finally, we propose an accelerated maximally split alternating directions method of multipliers (AMS-ADMM) to reduce the computational complexity of spectrum map construction. Simulation results demonstrate that our proposed method can effectively eliminate external noise interference and outliers, and achieve an accuracy improvement of more than 27% compared to state-of-the-art fusion methods in spectrum map construction with low complexity. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Technologies and Applications of UAV Channel Models in Communications and Spectrum Awareness: 2nd Edition)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

Show export options expand_more Show export options expand_less
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:
 
Displaying articles 1-2
Back to TopTop