{
  "abstract": "Existing trajectory designs for covert communications with uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) typically rely on point-mass kinematics, which overlook the inherent coupling between flight maneuvers and antenna orientation. Motivated by recent studies linking UAV acceleration to attitude, we investigate dynamics-consistent trajectory and attitude co-design for rotary-wing UAV covert communications. We consider a UAV equipped with a directional antenna transmitting confidential information to a legitimate ground receiver in the presence of a warden. The acceleration-induced reduced attitude of the UAV is explicitly modeled together with its impact on the attitude-dependent directional channel gain. To ensure covertness, we derive a per-slot constraint based on the Kullback--Leibler (KL) divergence at the warden. We then formulate a joint trajectory and attitude optimization problem to maximize the average achievable covert rate subject to covertness, motion, thrust-magnitude, attitude-smoothness, and acceleration-domain safety constraints induced by roll and pitch limits. The resulting problem is non-convex because the channel gains depend jointly on position, acceleration, and attitude. To solve it, we develop a minorization--maximization (MM)-based algorithm that constructs a concave lower bound on the transmission rate and a convex upper bound on the covert constraint at each iteration. We further extend the framework to imperfect attitude control and develop a robust design against attitude tracking errors caused by actuator limitations, sensor noise, and control delays. Numerical results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed dynamics-consistent design and highlight the benefit of jointly optimizing UAV trajectory and attitude for covert communications.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": "2610.01307",
  "author_total": 5,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "Jinpeng Xu"
    },
    {
      "name": "Lin Zhou"
    },
    {
      "name": "Xin Xie"
    },
    {
      "name": "Mengyuan Zhang"
    },
    {
      "name": "Jingjing Wang"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/5knj56h0673rp.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.48550/arxiv.2610.01307",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "5knj56h0673rp",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.01307",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "LicenseRef-arXiv-nonexclusive-1.0",
  "licence_label": "arXiv licence",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/",
  "metadata_licence": "CC0-1.0",
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "arxiv",
      "cs.IT"
    ],
    [
      "arxiv",
      "math.IT"
    ],
    [
      "openalex",
      "2208|Wireless Communication Security Techniques"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7216000680",
  "pdf_url": "https://arxiv.org/pdf/2610.01307",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-10-01",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/5knj56h0673rp.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:26:07Z",
      "native_id": "2610.01307",
      "source": "arxiv",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.01307"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "mathematics",
      "origin": "arxiv:math.IT",
      "subfield": "general"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Exploiting UAV Attitude for Covert Communications: Dynamics-Consistent Trajectory-Attitude Co-Design",
  "title_text": "Exploiting UAV Attitude for Covert Communications: Dynamics-Consistent Trajectory-Attitude Co-Design",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:26:07Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/5knj56h0673rp",
  "venue": "arXiv",
  "versions": []
}