Optimal UGV-UAV Cooperative Partitioning and Inspection of Shortest Paths

We study cooperative shortest path planning for an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) assisted by an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in environments with unknown road blockages that are only discovered when a robot reaches the damaged point. This formulation generalizes the original Canadian Traveller Problem (CTP), which assumes a single ground vehicle and that the traversability status of all incident edges is revealed upon arrival at a vertex. We first analyze the case where the start and the goal are connected by $k$ disjoint paths, and prove that the worst-case competitive ratio $ρ$ for a single UGV is $2k-1$. With UAV assistance, and under the simplifying assumption of negligible initial transit and deadheading UAV costs, the ratio improves to $ρ= 2\frac{v_G}{v_A + v_G}k - 1$, where $v_G$ and $v_A$ denote the UGV and UAV speed, respectively. To address general graphs and non-negligible UAV initial transit and deadheading costs, we present an optimal path partitioning strategy that assigns path prefix inspection to the UGV and path suffix inspection to the UAV, and prove the optimality of the UAV inspection strategy on general graphs. We evaluate our algorithm by performing experiments on road networks from the world's 50 most populous cities, with randomized blockages, and show that the proposed method reduces UGV travel times by up to 30%.

PILOT: One Physics-Integrated Generation Framework to Unify 2D and 3D Radio Map Construction

Unified 2D and 3D radio map construction supports network planning, wireless digital twins, and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) applications. In urban environments, blockage, reflection, and diffraction make accurate construction expensive for physics-based solvers. Autoregressive next-token prediction offers a single sequential formulation that can cover both 2D and 3D generation, but standard raster ordering ignores the spatial structure of radio propagation. When generation follows propagation, each token is predicted from propagation-relevant history rather than spatially arbitrary context, which provides more causally informative conditioning and lowers conditional uncertainty. We propose PILOT, a pretrained autoregressive framework that replaces raster scan with a wavefront sequence expanding outward from the transmitter. Each prediction step is guided by an environment-aware instruction that spatially aligns environment features with the queried radio map region. The same framework extends to 3D radio maps through height-slice stacking while a gradient loss enforces vertical continuity. On standard 2D benchmarks, PILOT achieves the lowest NMSE among all baselines. For volumetric generation, it reduces NMSE by 78% relative to the diffusion baseline at roughly $2500\times$ faster inference. It also outperforms methods that rely on 10% sparse measurements and achieves the best zero-shot results in the cross-domain evaluation.

Adaptive Multi-UAV Relay Deployment Framework in Satellite Aerial Ground Integrated Systems

The sixth generation (6G) communication networks are expected to provide high data rates, ultra-reliable communication, and massive connectivity, especially in challenging environments such as dense urban areas and disaster-affected regions. However, traditional terrestrial-only networks face significant challenges in these scenarios, including signal blockages from high-rise buildings, traffic congestion, and dynamic user distributions. To address these limitations, we propose the adaptive multi-UAV deployment (AMUD) framework within satellite air-ground integrated networks (SAGINs). The AMUD framework dynamically deploys amplify-and-forward multiple unmanned aerial vehicle relay (UAVr) in with low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites to improve coverage, alleviate congestion, and ensure reliable communication in non-line-of-sight and high-demand conditions. We formulate an optimization problem that aims to jointly maximize the energy efficiency of the total network and the total capacity while ensuring the fairness of the total capacity and satisfying the users' requirements. The simulation results demonstrate that AMUD improves the total capacity of the network, improves the total energy efficiency, and increases the fairness of the capacity compared to traditional LEO satellite and ground base station (LEO-GBS) only systems.

Geometry-Aware Networking for Low-Altitude Economy: Movable Antennas in Space-Air-Ground Integrated Systems

Space--air--ground integrated networks (SAGINs) are emerging as a key foundation for future non-terrestrial networks (NTNs) and low-altitude economy services. However, their performance is increasingly limited not only by communication resources, but by the inability to adapt to rapidly changing spatial geometry. Here, spatial geometry refers to the relative configuration among network nodes, obstacles, and targets, which directly determines propagation conditions, blockage states, interference patterns, and sensing observability.This trend becomes more pronounced as low-altitude operations grow in density and complexity, causing the dominant bottleneck to shift from static resource allocation toward real-time maintenance of favorable spatial geometry across layers.In this article, we argue that movable antenna (MA) technology provides a fundamentally new perspective for SAGIN design. By enabling controlled antenna displacement, MA introduces a spatial degree of freedom that allows the network to directly adapt local spatial geometry at fine granularity, rather than passively reacting to it through beamforming or platform mobility.We present a geometry-aware, layered SAGIN architecture, where Low-Earth-Orbit (LEO) provides macro-scale coverage and coordination, High-Altitude Platform Stations (HAPS) enables regional continuity and backhaul support, and MA is incorporated into the layered design to enable fine-grained geometry adaptation, particularly at unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and terrestrial layers where local channel dynamics are most pronounced. We further discuss how such geometry control enhances robustness, supports multi-functional operation spanning communication, sensing, control, and navigation, and enables more flexible spatial cooperation across layers.

Channel Measurements and Modeling based on Composite Environmental Factor for Urban Street-Canyon Intersections

In urban environments, vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communications require accurate wireless channel characterization. This requirement is particularly critical at street-canyon intersections, where building blockage and rich multipath propagation can severely degrade link reliability. Due to its unique environmental layout, the channel characteristics in urban canyon are influenced by building distribution. However, this feature has not been well captured in existing channel models. In this paper, we propose an environment-related statistical channel model based on 5.8~GHz channel measurements. We construct a composite environmental factor to characterize environmental differences in intersections. Then, the factor is incorporated into 3GPP path-loss model and further linked to small-scale channel parameters. Finally, accuracy of the proposed model is validated using second-order channel statistics. The results show that the proposed model can effectively characterize propagation properties of urban street-canyon intersection channels with different building conditions. The proposed model provides a physically interpretable and statistically effective framework for channel simulation and performance evaluation in urban vehicular scenarios.

Occlusion-Aware Multimodal Beam Prediction and Pose Estimation for mmWave V2I

We propose an occlusion-aware multimodal learning framework that is inspired by simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) concepts for trajectory interpretation and pose prediction. Targeting mmWave vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) beam management under dynamic blockage, our Transformer-based fusion network ingests synchronized RGB images, LiDAR point clouds, radar range-angle maps, GNSS, and short-term mmWave power history. It jointly predicts the receive beam index, blockage probability, and 2D position using labels automatically derived from 64-beam sweep power vectors, while an offline LiDAR map enables SLAM-style trajectory visualization. On the 60 GHz DeepSense 6G Scenario 31 dataset, the model achieves 50.92\% Top-1 and 86.50\% Top-3 beam accuracy with 0.018 bits/s/Hz spectral-efficiency loss, 63.35\% blocked-class F1, and 1.33m position RMSE. Multimodal fusion outperforms radio-only and strong camera-only baselines, showing the value of coupling perception and communication for future 6G V2I systems.

3D Spherical Directly-Connected Antenna Array for Low-Altitude UAV Swarm ISAC

Recently a novel multi-antenna architecture termed ray antenna array (RAA) was proposed, where several simple uniform linear arrays (sULAs) are arranged in a ray-like structure to enhance communication and sensing performance. By eliminating the need for phase shifters, it also significantly reduces hardware costs. However, RAA is prone to signal blockage and has no elevation angle resolution capability in three-dimensional (3D) scenarios. To address such issues, in this paper we propose a novel spherical directly-connected antenna array (DCAA), which composes of multiple simple uniform planar arrays (sUPAs) placed over a spherical surface. All elements within each sUPA are directly connected. Compared to conventional arrays with hybrid analog/digital beamforming (HBF), DCAA significantly reduces hardware cost, improves energy focusing, and provides superior and uniform angular res olution for 3D space. These advantages make DCAA particularly suitable for integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) in low-altitude unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) swarm scenarios, where targets may frequently move away from the boresight of traditional arrays, degrading both communication and sensing performance. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed spherical DCAA achieves significantly better angular resolution and higher spectral efficiency than conventional array with HBF, highlighting its strong potential for UAV swarm ISAC systems.

Dual-Branch INS/GNSS Fusion with Inequality and Equality Constraints

Reliable vehicle navigation in urban environments remains a challenging problem due to frequent satellite signal blockages caused by tall buildings and complex infrastructure. While fusing inertial reading with satellite positioning in an extended Kalman filter provides short-term navigation continuity, low-cost inertial sensors suffer from rapid error accumulation during prolonged outages. Existing information aiding approaches, such as the non-holonomic constraint, impose rigid equality assumptions on vehicle motion that may be violated under dynamic urban driving conditions, limiting their robustness precisely when aiding is most needed. In this paper, we propose a dual-branch information aiding framework that fuses equality and inequality motion constraints through a variance-weighted scheme, requiring only a software modification to an existing navigation filter with no additional sensors or hardware. The proposed method is evaluated on four publicly available urban datasets featuring various inertial sensors, road conditions, and dynamics, covering a total duration of 4.3 hours of recorded data. Under Full GNSS availability, the method reduces vertical position error by 16.7% and improves altitude accuracy by 50.1% over the standard non-holonomic constraint. Under GNSS-denied conditions, vertical drift is reduced by 24.2% and altitude accuracy improves by 20.2%. These results demonstrate that replacing hard motion equality assumptions with physically motivated inequality bounds is a practical and cost-free strategy for improving navigation resilience, continuity, and drift robustness without relying on additional sensors, map data, or learned models.

From Prompts to Pavement: LMMs-based Agentic Behavior-Tree Generation Framework for Autonomous Vehicles

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) require adaptive behavior planners to navigate unpredictable, real-world environments safely. Traditional behavior trees (BTs) offer structured decision logic but are inherently static and demand labor-intensive manual tuning, limiting their applicability at SAE Level 5 autonomy. This paper presents an agentic framework that leverages large language models (LLMs) and multi-modal vision models (LVMs) to generate and adapt BTs on the fly. A specialized Descriptor agent applies chain-of-symbols prompting to assess scene criticality, a Planner agent constructs high-level sub-goals via in-context learning, and a Generator agent synthesizes executable BT sub-trees in XML format. Integrated into a CARLA+Nav2 simulation, our system triggers only upon baseline BT failure, demonstrating successful navigation around unexpected obstacles (e.g., street blockage) with no human intervention. Compared to a static BT baseline, this approach is a proof-of-concept that extends to diverse driving scenarios.

Vehicle-to-Infrastructure Collaborative Spatial Perception via Multimodal Large Language Models

Accurate prediction of communication link quality metrics is essential for vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) systems, enabling smooth handovers, efficient beam management, and reliable low-latency communication. The increasing availability of sensor data from modern vehicles motivates the use of multimodal large language models (MLLMs) because of their adaptability across tasks and reasoning capabilities. However, MLLMs inherently lack three-dimensional spatial understanding. To overcome this limitation, a lightweight, plug-and-play bird's-eye view (BEV) injection connector is proposed. In this framework, a BEV of the environment is constructed by collecting sensing data from neighboring vehicles. This BEV representation is then fused with the ego vehicle's input to provide spatial context for the large language model. To support realistic multimodal learning, a co-simulation environment combining CARLA simulator and MATLAB-based ray tracing is developed to generate RGB, LiDAR, GPS, and wireless signal data across varied scenarios. Instructions and ground-truth responses are programmatically extracted from the ray-tracing outputs. Extensive experiments are conducted across three V2I link prediction tasks: line-of-sight (LoS) versus non-line-of-sight (NLoS) classification, link availability, and blockage prediction. Simulation results show that the proposed BEV injection framework consistently improved performance across all tasks. The results indicate that, compared to an ego-only baseline, the proposed approach improves the macro-average of the accuracy metrics by up to 13.9%. The results also show that this performance gain increases by up to 32.7% under challenging rainy and nighttime conditions, confirming the robustness of the framework in adverse settings.