Towed Movable Antenna (ToMA) Array for Ultra Secure Airborne Communications

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Zhu, Lipeng, Mao, Haobin, Ma, Wenyan, Xiao, Zhenyu, Zhang, Jun, Zhang, Rui
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Zhu, Lipeng
Mao, Haobin
Ma, Wenyan
Xiao, Zhenyu
Zhang, Jun
Zhang, Rui
author_facet Zhu, Lipeng
Mao, Haobin
Ma, Wenyan
Xiao, Zhenyu
Zhang, Jun
Zhang, Rui
contents This paper proposes a novel towed movable antenna (ToMA) array architecture to enhance the physical layer security of airborne communication systems. Unlike conventional onboard arrays with fixed-position antennas (FPAs), the ToMA array employs multiple subarrays mounted on flexible cables and towed by distributed drones, enabling agile deployment in three-dimensional (3D) space surrounding the central aircraft. This design significantly enlarges the effective array aperture and allows dynamic geometry reconfiguration, offering superior spatial resolution and beamforming flexibility. We consider a secure transmission scenario where an airborne transmitter communicates with multiple legitimate users in the presence of potential eavesdroppers. To ensure security, zero-forcing beamforming is employed to nullify signal leakage toward eavesdroppers. Based on the statistical distributions of locations of users and eavesdroppers, the antenna position vector (APV) of the ToMA array is optimized to maximize the users' ergodic achievable rate. Analytical results for the case of a single user and a single eavesdropper reveal the optimal APV structure that minimizes their channel correlation. For the general multiuser scenario, we develop a low-complexity alternating optimization algorithm by leveraging Riemannian manifold optimization. Simulation results confirm that the proposed ToMA array achieves significant performance gains over conventional onboard FPA arrays, especially in scenarios where eavesdroppers are closely located to users under line-of-sight (LoS)-dominant channels.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_01229
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Towed Movable Antenna (ToMA) Array for Ultra Secure Airborne Communications
Zhu, Lipeng
Mao, Haobin
Ma, Wenyan
Xiao, Zhenyu
Zhang, Jun
Zhang, Rui
Information Theory
Signal Processing
This paper proposes a novel towed movable antenna (ToMA) array architecture to enhance the physical layer security of airborne communication systems. Unlike conventional onboard arrays with fixed-position antennas (FPAs), the ToMA array employs multiple subarrays mounted on flexible cables and towed by distributed drones, enabling agile deployment in three-dimensional (3D) space surrounding the central aircraft. This design significantly enlarges the effective array aperture and allows dynamic geometry reconfiguration, offering superior spatial resolution and beamforming flexibility. We consider a secure transmission scenario where an airborne transmitter communicates with multiple legitimate users in the presence of potential eavesdroppers. To ensure security, zero-forcing beamforming is employed to nullify signal leakage toward eavesdroppers. Based on the statistical distributions of locations of users and eavesdroppers, the antenna position vector (APV) of the ToMA array is optimized to maximize the users' ergodic achievable rate. Analytical results for the case of a single user and a single eavesdropper reveal the optimal APV structure that minimizes their channel correlation. For the general multiuser scenario, we develop a low-complexity alternating optimization algorithm by leveraging Riemannian manifold optimization. Simulation results confirm that the proposed ToMA array achieves significant performance gains over conventional onboard FPA arrays, especially in scenarios where eavesdroppers are closely located to users under line-of-sight (LoS)-dominant channels.
title Towed Movable Antenna (ToMA) Array for Ultra Secure Airborne Communications
topic Information Theory
Signal Processing
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.01229