Adaptive Beamwidth Control for Terahertz Drone Communications: A Row-Selective Antenna Array Approach

Even though Terahertz (THz) band is promising for Drone-to-Drone (D2D) communication, there exists significant challenges, primarily high path loss and the sensitivity of directional links to mobility-induced beam misalignment. In this paper, we propose a novel adaptive beamwidth control system for THz D2D communication by activating rows of the designed 8x8 microstrip patch antenna array operating at 272.5 GHz. The proposed row-selective activation mechanism provides dynamic adjustment of the elevation beamwidth by activating different combinations of antenna rows (from 1x8 to 8x8 configurations). The proposed mechanism offers a flexible trade-off in its beam characteristics, utilizes narrow, high-gain beams to maximize performance in stable links, and dynamically switches to wider, more robust beams to ensure connectivity during drone maneuvers. The performance of the reconfigurable array is evaluated through real drone mobility traces. Simulation results reveal that during periods of misalignment, the adaptive beamwidth strategy maintains link capacity that is up to three orders of magnitude higher than fixed-beam configurations, promising a practical solution for resource-constrained THz D2D communication.