Fluid Antenna-Based Age of Information Performance in UAV-enabled Mobile Edge Computing Networks

This paper investigates the Age of Information (AoI) performance in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV)-enabled Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) networks using Fluid Antenna System (FAS). The proposed scheme leverages FAS to dynamically reconfigure antenna positions within a predefined space, thereby achieving significant spatial diversity gains despite the inherent constraints of UAV platforms. Specifically, this paper addresses two key challenges: 1) computational complexity in port selection, which is tackled by a novel algorithm that achieves near-optimal performance while sampling only $1 \%$ of the available ports, and 2) limited communication coverage, for which we derive a mathematical expression for the FAS coverage area based on SNR threshold. Extensive simulations demonstrate that UAV equipped with FAS outperforms traditional antenna system, achieving 2-5 times greater communication coverage while reducing the system’s average AoI by over $65 \%$. These advancements offer critical performance improvements for time-sensitive applications in UAV-enabled MEC networks, ensuring more efficient and reliable communication.