The research on the sixth-generation (6G) wireless communications for the development of future mobile communication networks has been officially launched around the world. 6G networks face multifarious challenges, such as resource-constrained mobile devices, difficult wireless resource management, high complexity of heterogeneous network architectures, explosive computing and storage requirements, privacy and security threats. To address these challenges, deploying blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI) in 6G networks may realize new breakthroughs in advancing network performances in terms of security, privacy, efficiency, cost, and more. In this paper, we provide a detailed survey of existing works on the application of blockchain and AI to 6G wireless communications. More specifically, we start with a brief overview of blockchain and AI. Then, we mainly review the recent advances in the fusion of blockchain and AI, and highlight the inevitable trend of deploying both blockchain and AI in wireless communications. Furthermore, we extensively explore integrating blockchain and AI for wireless communication systems, involving secure services and Internet of Things (IoT) smart applications. Particularly, some of the most talked-about key services based on blockchain and AI are introduced, such as spectrum management, computation allocation, content caching, and security and privacy. Moreover, we also focus on some important IoT smart applications supported by blockchain and AI, covering smart healthcare, smart transportation, smart grid, and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Moreover, we thoroughly discuss operating frequencies, visions, and requirements from the 6G perspective. We also analyze the open issues and research challenges for the joint deployment of blockchain and AI in 6G wireless communications. Lastly, based on lots of existing meaningful works, this paper aims to provide a comprehensive survey of blockchain and AI in 6G networks. We hope this survey can shed new light on the research of this newly emerging area and serve as a roadmap for future studies.

The downlink communications are vulnerable to intelligent unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) jamming attack. In this paper, we propose a novel anti-intelligent UAV jamming strategy, in which the ground users can learn the optimal trajectory to elude such jamming. The problem is formulated as a stackelberg dynamic game, where the UAV jammer acts as a leader and the ground users act as followers. First, as the UAV jammer is only aware of the incomplete channel state information (CSI) of the ground users, for the first attempt, we model such leader sub-game as a partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP). Then, we obtain the optimal jamming trajectory via the developed deep recurrent Q-networks (DRQN) in the three-dimension space. Next, for the followers sub-game, we use the Markov decision process (MDP) to model it. Then we obtain the optimal communication trajectory via the developed deep Q-networks (DQN) in the two-dimension space. We prove the existence of the stackelberg equilibrium and derive the closed-form expression for the stackelberg equilibrium in a special case. Moreover, some insightful remarks are obtained and the time complexity of the proposed defense strategy is analyzed. The simulations show that the proposed defense strategy outperforms the benchmark strategies.

Recently, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarm communication has drawn much attention in search and rescue (SAR) missions owing to its wide wireless coverage and increasing autonomy in navigation. In this article, we consider maximizing the downlink wireless coverage of a UAV swarm in an unknown mission area by controlling the quasistationary deployments of UAVs. Particularly, the stochastic wireless link failures caused by channel fading and noise in UAV-to-UAV communication links are considered in coverage control. Specifically, due to delay sensitivity and onboard energy limitation of UAV-enabled SAR networks, we study a distributed control strategy where swarm UAVs can address the coverage problem by exchanging only the local information. In this case, the wireless coverage problem is divided into several distributed optimization subproblems. However, due to the integer variable and nonlinear constraints, each subproblem is nonconvex and mutually coupling, which makes it difficult to solve via standard convex optimization solvers. Thus, we model the UAV swarm network as an undirected random graph and then solve the optimization subproblems by formulating a UAV swarm wireless coverage game. As per the designed utility function and potential function of the formulated game, existence of the pure Nash equilibrium is discussed and a distributed algorithm is developed to achieve the best Nash equilibrium. We analyze the convergence property and computational complexity of the proposed algorithm. Meanwhile, we analyze effects of the initial learning rate and step size on algorithm performance from both theoretical and simulation results. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm improves the coverage by around 58% when compared with initial performance.

We optimize the deployment of an aerial reconfigurable intelligent surface (ARIS) to assist the high altitude platform (HAP) downlink transmission when the direct link is blocked. Specifically, we maximize the received signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the ground users by jointly optimizing the trajectory and the phase-shift of the ARIS with the consideration of the unknown movement of HAP, which is caused by the changes in the stratospheric wind and air density. Due to the non-convex nature of the formulated optimization problem, we decouple the optimization problem and propose an alternative two-stage optimization. By proving that the movement of the HAP follows a finite state Markov stochastic process, we first learn the optimal ARIS trajectory via model-free reinforcement learning, and then adjust the optimal phase-shift of the ARIS, alternately. Next, the convergence of the proposed algorithm is analyzed based on the obtained upper bound of the accumulated reward. The numerical results show substantial performance gain of HAP communications with the optimized ARIS assistance.

We consider the uplink transmission between a multi-antenna ground station and an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarm. The UAVs are assumed as intelligent agents, which can explore their optimal three dimensional (3-D) deployment to maximize the channel capacity of the multiple input multiple output (MIMO) system. Specifically, considering the limitations of each UAV in accessing the global information of the network, we focus on a decentralized control strategy by noting that each UAV in the swarm can only utilize the local information to achieve the optimal 3-D deployment. In this case, the optimization problem can be divided into several optimization sub-problems with respect to the rank function. Due to the non-convex nature of the rank function and the fact that the optimization sub-problems are coupled, the original problem is NP-hard and, thus, cannot be solved with standard convex optimization solvers. Interestingly, we can relax the constraint condition of each sub-problem and solve the optimization problem by a formulated UAVs channel capacity maximization game. We analyze such game according to the designed reward function and the potential function. Then, we discuss the existence of the pure Nash equilibrium in the game. To achieve the best Nash equilibrium of the MIMO system, we develop a decentralized learning algorithm, namely decentralized UAVs channel capacity learning. The details of the algorithm are provided, and then, the convergence, the effectiveness and the computational complexity are analyzed, respectively. Moreover, we give some insightful remarks based on the proofs and the theoretical analysis. Also, extensive simulations illustrate that the developed learning algorithm can achieve a high MIMO channel capacity by optimizing the 3-D UAV swarm deployment with the local information.