We present a novel and first-of-its-kind information-theoretic framework for the key design consideration and implementation of a ground-to-UAV (G2U) communication network to minimize end-to-end transmission delay in the presence of interference. The proposed framework is useful as it describes the minimum transmission latency for an uplink ground-to-UAV communication must satisfy while achieving a given level of reliability. To characterize the transmission delay, we utilize Fano's inequality and derive the tight upper bound for the capacity for the G2U uplink channel in the presence of interference, noise, and potential jamming. Subsequently, given the reliability constraint, the error exponent is obtained for the given channel. Furthermore, a relay UAV in the dual-hop relay mode, with amplify-and-forward (AF) protocol, is considered, for which we jointly obtain the optimal positions of the relay and the receiver UAVs in the presence of interference. Interestingly, in our study, we find that for both the point-to-point and relayed links, increasing the transmit power may not always be an optimal solution for delay minimization problems. Moreover, we prove that there exists an optimal height that minimizes the end-to-end transmission delay in the presence of interference. The proposed framework can be used in practice by a network controller as a system parameters selection criteria, where among a set of parameters, the parameters leading to the lowest transmission latency can be incorporated into the transmission. The based analysis further set the baseline assessment when applying Command and Control (C2) standards to mission-critical G2U and UAV-to-UAV(U2U) services.

翻译：我们提出了一种新颖且首创的信息论框架，用于地面对无人机（G2U）通信网络的关键设计考量与实现，旨在存在干扰的情况下最小化端到端传输时延。该框架描述了上行地面对无人机通信在达到给定可靠性水平时必须满足的最小传输时延，具有实际应用价值。为表征传输时延，我们利用Fano不等式推导了存在干扰、噪声及潜在干扰时G2U上行信道容量的紧致上界。随后，基于可靠性约束，获得了给定信道的误差指数。此外，针对采用放大转发（AF）协议的双跳中继模式，我们联合优化了存在干扰时中继无人机与接收无人机的空间位置。有趣的是，本研究发现：对于点对点链路与中继链路，在时延最小化问题中增大发射功率并非始终最优解。进一步，我们证明了存在使端到端传输时延最小化的最优高度。该框架可被网络控制器用作系统参数选择准则：在参数集合中选取能实现最低传输时延的参数组合应用于实际传输。基于上述分析的结果，为关键任务型G2U及无人机间（U2U）服务应用指挥控制（C2）标准建立了基准评估方法。