Optimizing UAV Deployment and Access Control for Integrated Localization and Communication

With the rise of low-altitude economy (LAE), the incorporation of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with ground networks can assist integrated localization and communication (ILAC) services for ground user equipment (UE). However, the UAV location and number significantly affect communication coverage and localization performance for ground UEs. Additionally, UAV energy consumption and operational lifespan constrain the number of UEs each UAV serves. In this paper, we investigate the UAV deployment and access control assisting with ground stations to provide both communication and localization service to potential UEs. We decompose the UAV cooperation problem into two subproblems, namely minimizing UAV problem and the UAV assignment problem. To minimize the UAV number, we design an iterative greedy search algorithm that utilizes criteria importance through intercriteria correlation (CRITIC) method to dynamically evaluate each candidate UAV selection. After that, we assign the UAV access for each UE and reduce the number of UE served by each UAV to extend the lifespan of the drones. The communication and localization assignment methods are proposed by analysis of the number of communication links per UAV and the redundancy of anchor nodes. Further, we adopt a probability-based search algorithm to solve the assignment problem. Numerical studies are conducted to verify our proposed approach compared to other benchmark methods.