Secure Communication in UAV–RIS-Empowered Multiuser Networks: Joint Beamforming, Phase Shift, and UAV Trajectory Optimization

In this article, we study the secure communication in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) aided and reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) empowered multiuser networks. In the proposed configuration, we consider UAV-mounted RIS to reflect the signal between the base station and the legitimate users in the presence of eavesdroppers. The problem is formulated as secrecy rate maximization with channel uncertainty constraints, which is nonconvex. Therefore, we decouple it into beamforming, phase shift, and UAV trajectory subproblems which are jointly optimized. For the beamforming and phase shift subproblems, we apply S-procedure and general sign-definiteness to transform them into tractable forms. And for the UAV trajectory, we unroll the constraints and apply first-order Taylor transform and the difference of two convex functions (DC) to obtain a relaxed convex problem that can be numerically solved. The proposed solution show effectiveness and improved the secrecy rate of the network.