Addressing the significant challenge of speech enhancement in ultra-low-Signal-to-Noise-Ratio (SNR) scenarios for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) voice communication, particularly under edge deployment constraints, this study proposes the Edge-Deployed Band-Split Rotary Position Encoding Transformer (Edge-BS-RoFormer), a novel, lightweight band-split rotary position encoding transformer. While existing deep learning methods face limitations in dynamic UAV noise suppression under such constraints, including insufficient harmonic modeling and high computational complexity, the proposed Edge-BS-RoFormer distinctively synergizes a band-split strategy for fine-grained spectral processing, a dual-dimension Rotary Position Encoding ($\mathrm{RoPE}$) mechanism for superior joint time–frequency modeling, and $\mathrm{FlashAttention}$ to optimize computational efficiency, pivotal for its lightweight nature and robust ultra-low-SNR performance. Experiments on our self-constructed DroneNoise-LibriMix (DN-LM) dataset demonstrate Edge-BS-RoFormer’s superiority. Under a −15 dB SNR, it achieves Scale-Invariant Signal-to-Distortion Ratio (SI-SDR) improvements of 2.2 dB over Deep Complex U-Net (DCUNet), 25.0 dB over the Dual-Path Transformer Network (DPTNet), and 2.3 dB over HTDemucs. Correspondingly, the Perceptual Evaluation of Speech Quality (PESQ) is enhanced by 0.11, 0.18, and 0.15, respectively. Crucially, its efficacy for edge deployment is substantiated by a minimal model storage of 8.534 MB, 11.617 GFLOPs (an 89.6% reduction vs. DCUNet), a runtime memory footprint of under 500MB, a Real-Time Factor (RTF) of 0.325 (latency: 330.830 ms), and a power consumption of 6.536 W on an NVIDIA Jetson AGX Xavier, fulfilling real-time processing demands. This study delivers a validated lightweight solution, exemplified by its minimal computational overhead and real-time edge inference capability, for effective speech enhancement in complex UAV acoustic scenarios, including dynamic noise conditions. Furthermore, the open-sourced dataset and model contribute to advancing research and establishing standardized evaluation frameworks in this domain.

Large Language Models (LLMs) struggle with accuracy, domain-specific reasoning, and interpretability in vertical domains. Traditional preference alignment methods like Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) and Direct Preference Optimization (DPO) often overlook the underlying knowledge sources and reasoning logic. This paper introduces RACE-Align (Retrieval-Augmented and Chain-of-Thought Enhanced Alignment), a novel framework designed to address these limitations. RACE-Align systematically constructs a binary preference dataset incorporating external knowledge support and explicit Chain-of-Thought (CoT) reasoning, then aligns LLMs using the DPO algorithm. The core innovation lies in its preference data construction strategy: it integrates AI-driven retrieval for factual grounding, enhancing knowledgeability and accuracy, and emphasizes the optimization of domain-specific CoT, treating the reasoning process itself as a key preference dimension. A multi-stage, AI-driven refinement pipeline cost-effectively generates these preference pairs. Experimental validation in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) using Qwen3-1.7B as the base model demonstrates that RACE-Align significantly outperforms the original base model and a model fine-tuned only with Supervised Fine-Tuning (SFT). Improvements were observed across multiple dimensions, including answer accuracy, information richness, application of TCM thinking patterns, logicality and depth of reasoning, and interpretability. These findings suggest RACE-Align offers an effective pathway to enhance LLMs' knowledge application, reasoning reliability, and process transparency in complex vertical domains.