Communications-Aware NMPC for Multi-Rotor Aerial Relay Networks Under Jamming Interference

Multi-Rotor Aerial Vehicles (MRAVs) are increasingly used in communication-dependent missions where connectivity loss directly compromises task execution. Existing antijamming strategies often decouple motion from communication, overlooking that link quality depends on vehicle attitude and antenna orientation. In coplanar platforms, “tilt-to-translate” maneuvers can inadvertently align antenna nulls with communication partners, causing severe degradation under interference. This paper presents a modular communications-aware control approach combining a high-level max-min trajectory generator with an actuator-level Nonlinear Model Predictive Controller (NMPC). The trajectory layer optimizes the weakest link- the link with the lower instantaneous Signal-to-Interferenceplus- Noise Ratio, which bottlenecks the harmonic-mean endto- end capacity-while the NMPC enforces vehicle dynamics, actuator limits, and antenna-alignment constraints. Antenna directionality is handled geometrically, avoiding explicit radiationpattern parametrization. The method is evaluated in a relay scenario with an active jammer and compared across coplanar and tilted-propeller architectures. Results show a near two-order-of-magnitude increase in minimum end-to-end capacity, markedly reducing outage events, with moderate averagecapacity gains. Tilted platforms preserve feasibility and link quality, whereas coplanar vehicles show recurrent degradation. These findings indicate that full actuation is a key enabler of reliable communications-aware operation under adversarial directional constraints.