Joint Trajectory and IRS Phase Shift Optimization for Dual IRS-UAV-Assisted Uplink Data Collection in Wireless Sensor Networks

Intelligent reflecting surface-assisted unmanned aerial vehicles (IRS-UAVs) have been widely applied in various communication scenarios. This paper addressed the uplink communication problem in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) by proposing a novel double IRS-UAVs assisted framework to improve the pairwise sum rate. Specifically, nodes with relatively short signal transmission distances upload signals via a single-reflection link, while nodes with relatively long distances upload signals through a dual-reflection link involving two IRSs. Within each work cycle, the IRS-UAVs followed a fixed service sequence to cyclically assist all sensor node pairs. We designed a joint optimization algorithm that simultaneously optimized the UAV trajectories and IRS phase shifts to maximize the pairwise sum rate while guaranteeing each node’s transmission rate meets a minimum quality of service (QoS) constraint. Specifically, we introduce slack variables to linearize the inherently nonlinear constraints arising from interdependent variables, thereby transforming each subproblem into a more manageable form. These subproblems are then solved iteratively within a coordinated optimization framework: in each iteration, one subproblem is optimized while keeping variables of others fixed, and the solutions are alternately updated to refine the overall performance. The numerical results show that this algorithm can effectively optimize the flight trajectory of the unmanned aircraft and significantly improve the pairwise total rate of the system. Compared with the two traditional schemes, the average optimization rates are 11.91% and 16.36%.