Digital Twin-Enabled Waveform Optimization for VHF Radio Communication Systems

Very High Frequency (VHF) radio communication systems face significant challenges in modern electromagnetic environments, including spectrum congestion, dynamic interference, and varying channel conditions. Existing adaptive approaches rely on static rule-based switching or single-cycle optimization, which cannot accumulate operational experience across decision cycles. This paper proposes a digital twin-enabled online learning framework (DT-MAB) for adaptive waveform selection in tactical VHF communication. The framework employs a contextual multi-armed bandit algorithm (Lin-UCB) that continuously learns the mapping from channel conditions to optimal configurations, with the digital twin serving as a virtual exploration sandbox that screens candidate configurations before physical deployment—preventing link disruptions during exploratory actions. An expanded configuration space of 63 candidates (7 waveforms × 3 MAC protocols × 3 power levels) is constructed, and a hierarchical performance evaluation model combining voice quality, bit error rate, communication delay, and transmission range is developed using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) as the reward function for online learning. Experimental results across 10 random seeds demonstrate that DT-MAB achieves the lowest mean cumulative regret, reducing regret by 29% relative to MAB without a digital twin and by 16.5% relative to PSO-based optimization on average. Ablation experiments confirm that removing virtual exploration increases performance drop events by 49% (from 250 ± 79 to 373 ± 6), demonstrating that the digital twin is a functionally indispensable component of the online learning architecture.