3-D Trajectory Optimization for Fixed-Wing UAV-Enabled Wireless Network

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is a promising technology for the next-generation communication systems. In this article, a fixed-wing UAV is considered to enhance the connectivity for far-users at the coverage region of an overcrowded base station (BS). In particular, a three dimensions (3D) UAV trajectory is optimized to improve the overall energy efficiency of the communication system by considering the system throughput and the UAV’s energy consumption for a given finite time horizon. The solutions for the proposed optimization problem are derived by applying Lagrangian optimization and using an algorithm based on successive convex iteration techniques. Numerical results demonstrate that by optimizing the UAV’s trajectory in the 3D space, the proposed system design achieves significantly higher energy efficiency with the gain reaching up to $20\,\,bitsJ^{-1}$ compared to the $14\,\,bitsJ^{-1}$ maximum gain achieved by the 2D space trajectory. Further, results reveal that the proposed algorithm converge earlier in 3D space trajectory compare to the 2D space trajectory.