Generative AI for Advanced UAV Networking

With the impressive achievements of chatGPT and Sora, generative artificial intelligence (GAI) has received increasing attention. Not limited to the field of content generation, GAI is also widely used to solve the problems in wireless communication scenarios due to its powerful learning and generalization capabilities. Therefore, we discuss key applications of GAI in improving unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communication and networking performance in this article. Specifically, we first review the key technologies of GAI and the important roles of UAV networking. Then, we show how GAI can improve the communication, networking, and security performances of UAV systems. Subsequently, we propose a novel framework of GAI for advanced UAV networking, and then present a case study of UAV-enabled spectrum map estimation and transmission rate optimization based on the proposed framework to verify the effectiveness of GAI-enabled UAV systems. Finally, we discuss some important open directions.