Can Movable Antenna-enabled Micro-Mobility Replace UAV-enabled Macro-Mobility? A Physical Layer Security Perspective

This paper investigates the potential of movable antenna (MA)-enabled micro-mobility to replace UAV-enabled macro-mobility for enhancing physical layer security (PLS) in air-to-ground communications. While UAV trajectory optimization offers high flexibility and Line-of-Sight (LoS) advantages, it suffers from significant energy consumption, latency, and complex trajectory optimization. Conversely, MA technology provides fine-grained spatial reconfiguration (antenna positioning within a confined area) with ultra-low energy overhead and millisecond-scale response, enabling real-time channel manipulation and covert beam steering. To systematically compare these paradigms, we establish a dual-scale mobility framework where a UAV-mounted uniform linear array (ULA) serves as a base station transmitting confidential information to a legitimate user (Bob) in the presence of an eavesdropper (Eve). We formulate non-convex average secrecy rate (ASR) maximization problems for both schemes: 1) MA-based micro-mobility: Jointly optimizing antenna positions and beamforming (BF) vectors under positioning constraints; 2) UAV-based macro-mobility: Jointly optimizing the UAV's trajectory and BF vectors under kinematic constraints. Extensive simulations reveal distinct operational regimes: MA micro-mobility demonstrates significant ASR advantages in low-transmit-power scenarios or under antenna constraints due to its energy-efficient spatial control. Conversely, UAV macro-mobility excels under resource-sufficient conditions (higher power, larger antenna arrays) by leveraging global mobility for optimal positioning. The findings highlight the complementary strengths of both approaches, suggesting hybrid micro-macro mobility as a promising direction for balancing security, energy efficiency, and deployment complexity in future wireless networks.

Movable Antenna Empowered Physical Layer Security Without Eve's CSI: Joint Optimization of Beamforming and Antenna Positions

Physical layer security (PLS) technology based on the fixed-position antenna (FPA) has {attracted widespread attention}. Due to the fixed feature of the antennas, current FPA-based PLS schemes cannot fully utilize the spatial degree of freedom, and thus a weaken secure gain in the desired/undesired direction may exist. Different from the concept of FPA, mobile antenna (MA) is a novel technology that {reconfigures} the wireless channels and enhances the corresponding capacity through the flexible movement of antennas on a minor scale. MA-empowered PLS enjoys huge potential and deserves further investigation. In this paper, we, for the first time, investigate the secrecy performance of MA-enabled PLS system where a MA-based Alice transmits the confidential information to multiple single-antenna Bobs, in the presence of the single-antenna eavesdropper (Eve) {in the absence} of perfect channel state information (CSI). For the purpose of the secrecy rate maximization of the worst Bob, we jointly design the transmit beamforming and antenna positions at the Alice, subject to the minimum moving distance of the antenna, uncertainty CSI of Eve, and maximum transmit power. Furthermore, the projected gradient ascent (PGA), alternating optimization (AO), and simulated annealing (SA) {are} adopted to solve the non-convex characteristics of the problem of the secrecy rate maximization. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness and correctness of the proposed method. In particular, MA-enabled PLS scheme can significantly enhance the secrecy rate compared to the conventional FPA-based ones for different settings of key system parameters.