Beam Tracking for High-Speed UAV via Generative Diffusion Model-Enabled Joint Optimization Approach

Beam tracking is crucial for maintaining stable data transmission in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communications. However, a communication link can be disrupted by frequent switching of narrow beams between a base station and a UAV at certain moments. In this study, we propose a position prediction-based beam tracking algorithm with adaptive beam reconstruction (PPBT-AR) for high-speed UAV. Specifically, long short-term memory (LSTM) recurrent neural networks are utilized to predict the nonlinear flight trajectory during high-speed flight. Moreover, we employ the generative diffusion model (GDM) to jointly optimize the beam width and signal strength, thereby reducing the number of beam switches. In addition, we design an adaptive beam reconstruction (ABR) mechanism to mitigate communication interruptions caused by prediction errors. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed PPBT-AR reduces the number of beam switches by 66.6% and 76.9% in low-speed and high-speed scenarios compared to the traditional phased array beam tracking algorithm, respectively.