Uncertainty-Calibrated UAV Trajectory Prediction for Beam Management in UAV-Assisted ISAC Scenarios

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Authors: Qing Cheng, Wenwen Wu, Ziwei Zhao
Cited by: 1
References: 32

Abstract

Reliable beam management in Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)-assisted Integrated Sensing and Communication (ISAC) systems needs accurate trajectory prediction and a clear sense of prediction risk. Most existing methods use deterministic future positions or raw uncalibrated uncertainty. Under high mobility and uncertainty, this leads to unreliable beam decisions. We design a control-oriented probabilistic trajectory prediction framework. It uses calibrated trajectory uncertainty as a risk signal for adaptive beam management. The framework first combines motion history and visual context to predict trajectory distributions. Split conformal calibration turns raw Gaussian uncertainty into statistically reliable risk bounds. A codebook-constrained beam management strategy adjusts beamwidth based on the calibrated spatial risk. This balances beamforming gain, coverage robustness, and switching stability. Tests on UAV data show better prediction accuracy than representative probabilistic baselines. The raw uncertainty remains under-calibrated, and conformal calibration is therefore applied to improve its reliability before beam-control decisions. Using the calibrated uncertainty for beam control improves communication coverage and cuts outages and severe misalignment in high-risk situations. Calibrated predictive uncertainty can serve as an actionable control variable for robust beam management in dynamic UAV-assisted ISAC environments.

Fields of Study & Subjects

UAV Applications and Optimization Underwater Vehicles and Communication Systems Optical Wireless Communication Technologies

Publication details

Journal / source
Drones
Publisher
MDPI AG
Volume
10
Issue
6
Pages
434–434
Publication date
3 June 2026
Language
EN