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 anti-jamming 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 \emph{weakest link}---the link with the lower instantaneous Signal-to-Interference-plus-Noise Ratio, which bottlenecks the harmonic-mean end-to-end capacity---while the NMPC enforces vehicle dynamics, actuator limits, and antenna-alignment constraints. Antenna directionality is handled geometrically, avoiding explicit radiation-pattern 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 average-capacity 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.