In recent years, there has been a dramatic increase in the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), particularly for small UAVs, due to their affordable prices, ease of availability, and ease of operability. Existing and future applications of UAVs include remote surveillance and monitoring, relief operations, package delivery, and communication backhaul infrastructure. Additionally, UAVs are envisioned as an important component of 5G wireless technology and beyond. The unique application scenarios for UAVs necessitate accurate air-to-ground (AG) propagation channel models for designing and evaluating UAV communication links for control/non-payload as well as payload data transmissions. These AG propagation models have not been investigated in detail when compared to terrestrial propagation models. In this paper, a comprehensive survey is provided on available AG channel measurement campaigns, large and small scale fading channel models, their limitations, and future research directions for UAV communication scenarios.
In this paper, we provide the model of the multilayer aerial network (MAN), composed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that distributed in Poisson point process (PPP) with different densities, heights, and transmission power. In our model, we consider the line of sight (LoS) and non-line of sight (NLoS) channels which is probabilistically formed. We firstly derive the probability distribution function (PDF) of the main link distance and the Laplace transform of interference of MAN considering strongest average received power-based association. We then analyze the successful transmission probabil…
This letter investigates the transmit power and trajectory optimization problem for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-aided networks. Different from majority of the existing studies with fixed communication infrastructure, a dynamic scenario is considered where a flying UAV provides wireless services for multiple ground nodes simultaneously. To fully exploit the controllable channel variations provided by the UAV's mobility, the UAV's transmit power and trajectory are jointly optimized to maximize the minimum average throughput within a given time length. For the formulated non-convex optimization…
In this paper, we analyze the impact of a friendly unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) jammer on UAV communications in the presence of multiple eavesdroppers. We first present channel components determined by the line-of-sight (LoS) probability between the friendly UAV jammer and the ground device, and introduce different channel fadings for LoS and non-line-of-sight (NLoS) links. We then derive the secrecy transmission probability satisfying both constraints of legitimate and wiretap channels. We also analyze the secrecy transmission probability in the presence of randomly distributed multiple frie…
With the fifth-generation (5G) mobile networks being actively standardized and deployed, many new vehicular communications technologies are developed to support and enrich various application scenarios. Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) enabled communications emerges as one of many promising solutions of constructing the next-generation highly reconfigurable and mobile networks. In this article, we first investigate and envision the challenges of future UAV applications from the net-work, system, and hardware design perspectives, and then pre-sent a UAV aerial base station (ABS) prototype which wo…
This paper proposes an intelligent technique for maximizing the network connectivity and provisioning desired quality of service (QoS) of integration of internet of things (IoT) and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Prediction of the signal strength and fading channel conditions enable adaptive data transmission which turn enhances the QoS for the end users/ devices with reducing the power consumption for data transmissions. UAV is data gathering robot from the difficult or impossible area for humans to reach. Hence, Atmospheric dynamics and environment influence the signal strength during travel…
Since various types of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with different hardware capabilities are introduced, we establish a foundation for the multi-layer aerial network (MAN). First, the MAN is modeled as K layer ANs, and each layer has UAVs with different densities, floating altitudes, and transmission power. To make the framework applicable for various scenarios in MAN, we consider the transmitter- and the receiver-oriented node association rules as well as the air-to-ground and air-to-air channel models, which form line of sight links with a location-dependent probability. We then newly ana…
An Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) is a promising technology for providing wireless coverage to ground user devices. For all the infrastructure communication networks destroyed in disasters, UAVs battery life is challenging during service delivery in a post-disaster scenario. Therefore, selecting cluster heads among user devices plays a vital role in detecting UAV signals and processing data for improving UAV energy efficacy and reliable Connectivity. This paper focuses on the performance evaluation of the clustering approach performance in detecting wireless coverage services with improving ene…
Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-enabled communication networks are promising in the fifth and beyond wireless communication systems. In this paper, we shed light on three UAV-enabled mobile edge computing (MEC) architectures. Those architectures have been receiving ever increasing research attention for improving computation performance and decreasing execution latency by integrating UAV into MEC networks. We present a comprehensive survey for the state-of-the-art research in this domain. Important implementation issues are clarified. Moreover, in order to provide an enlightening guidance for fu…
System, design and methodology to load and dispense different articles from an autonomous aircraft are disclosed. In one embodiment, the design of a unique detachable dispenser for delivery of articles is described along with an intelligent methodology of loading and delivering the articles to and from the dispenser. Design of the dispenser, interaction of the dispenser with the flight control unit and ground control or base-station, and interaction of the base station with the sender or recipient of the article, are also described.
As new use cases are emerging for unmanned aerial systems (UAS), advanced wireless communications technologies and systems need to be implemented and widely tested. This requires a flexible platform for development, deployment, testing and demonstration of wireless systems with ground and aerial nodes, enabling effective 3D mobile communications and networking. In this paper, we provide a comparative overview of software-defined radios (SDRs), with a specific focus on SDR hardware and software that can be used for aerial wireless experimentation and research. We discuss SDR hardware requiremen…
As the technological advancement and capabilities of automated systems have increased drastically, the usage of unmanned aerial vehicles for performing human-dependent tasks without human indulgence has also spiked. Since unmanned aerial vehicles are heavily dependent on Information and Communication Technology, they are highly prone to cyber-attacks. With time more advanced and new attacks are being developed and employed. However, the current Intrusion detection system lacks detection and classification of new and unknown attacks. Therefore, for having an autonomous and reliable operation of…
Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarm enabled edge computing is envisioned to be promising in the sixth generation wireless communication networks due to their wide application sensories and flexible deployment. However, most of the existing works focus on edge computing enabled by a single or a small scale UAVs, which are very different from UAV swarm-enabled edge computing. In order to facilitate the practical applications of UAV swarm-enabled edge computing, the state of the art research is presented in this article. The potential applications, architectures and implementation considerations …
Civilian Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are becoming more accessible for domestic use. Currently, UAV manufacturer DJI dominates the market, and their drones have been used for a wide range of applications. Model lines such as the Phantom can be applied for autonomous navigation where Global Positioning System (GPS) signals are not reliable, with the aid of Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM), such as monocular Visual SLAM. In this work, we propose a bridge among different systems, such as Linux, Robot Operating System (ROS), Android, and UAVs as an open-source framework, where the g…
Localization of a target object has been performed conventionally using multiple terrestrial reference nodes. This paradigm is recently shifted towards utilization of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for locating target objects. Since locating of a target using simultaneous multiple UAVs is costly and impractical, achieving this task by utilizing single UAV becomes desirable. Hence, in this paper, we propose an RSSI-based localization method that utilizes only a single UAV. The proposed approach is based on clustering method along with the Singular Value Decomposition (SVD). The performance of …
In order to develop and analyze reliable communications links for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), accurate models for the propagation channel are required. The radio channel properties in the urban scenario are different from those in the suburb scenario and open area due to so many scattering paths from office buildings, especially when the UAV flies in the low altitude. We took some measurement campaigns on the campus of Tsinghua University with crowded apartments and office buildings. Based on the measurement result we extract the main parameters of pathloss model, and propose a simplified…
Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) base stations (BSs) are reliable and efficient alternative to full fill the coverage and capacity requirements when the backbone network fails to provide such requirements due to disasters. In this paper, we consider optimal UAV-deployment problem in 3D space for a mmWave network. The objective is to deploy multiple aerial BSs simultaneously to completely serve the ground users. We develop a novel algorithm to find the feasible positions for a set of UAV-BSs from a predefined set of locations, subject to a signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) constraint …
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have drastically gained popularity in various Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) applications to improve the safety and efficiency of transportation systems. In this context, the combination of ground vehicles, such as delivery trucks, with drones to assist in the last mile pick-up and delivery of the parcels has been recently proposed. While aerial vehicles promise increased efficiency based on flexible routes and parallelized operation, highly reliable wireless communication is also required for the control and coordination of potentially many drones acti…
Research, Technology and Innovation Network (RTIN), The American College of Greece（美国希腊学院研究、技术与创新网络（RTIN））；Aalborg University（奥尔堡大学）
In this work, we study the trade-off between the reliability and the investment cost of an unmanned aerial system (UAS) consisting of a set of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) carrying radio access nodes, called portable access points (PAPs)), deployed to serve a set of ground nodes (GNs). Using the proposed algorithm, a given geographical region is equivalently represented as a set of circular regions, where each circle represents the coverage region of a PAP. Then, the steady-state availability of the UAS is analytically derived by modelling it as a continuous time birth-death Markov decision…
The high configurability and low cost of Reflective Intelligent Surfaces (RISs) made them a promising solution for enhancing the capabilities of Beyond Fifth-Generation (B5G) networks. Recent works proposed to mount RISs on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), combining the high network configurability provided by RIS with the mobility brought by UAVs. However, the RIS represents an additional weight that impacts the battery lifetime of the UAV. Furthermore, the practicality of the resulting link in terms of communication channel quality and security have not been assessed in detail. In this paper…
An innovative method of detecting Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is presented. The goal of this study is to develop a robust setup for an autonomous multi-rotor hunter UAV, capable of visually detecting and tracking the intruder UAVs for real-time motion planning. The system consists of two parts: object detection using a stereo camera to generate 3D point cloud data and video tracking applying a Kalman filter for UAV motion modeling. After detection, the hunter can aim and shoot a tethered net at the intruder to neutralize it. The computer vision, motion tracking, and planning algorithms can…
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been increasingly utilized in various civilian and military applications such as remote sensing, border patrolling, disaster monitoring, and communication coverage extension. However, there are still prone to several cyber attacks such as GPS spoofing attacks, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, and man-in-the-middle attacks to obtain their collected information or to enforce the UAVs to perform their requested actions which may damage the UAVs or their surrounding environment or even endanger the safety of human in the operation field. In this pa…
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) of the United States is considering Remote ID systems for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). These systems act as license plates used on automobiles, but they transmit information using radio waves. To be useful, the transmissions in such systems need to reach long distances to minimize the number of ground stations to capture these transmissions. LoRaWAN is designed as a cheap long-range technology to be used for long-range communication for the Internet of Things. Several manufacturers make LoRaWAN modules, which are readily available on the market and are…
This article introduces a new mobile-based application of modern information and communication technology in agriculture based on Internet of Things (IoT), embedded systems and an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The proposed agricultural monitoring system was designed and implemented using Arduino microcontroller boards, Wi-Fi modules, water pumps and electronic environmental sensors, namely temperature, humidity and soil moisture. The role of UAV in this study is to collect these environmental data from different regions of the farm. Then, the quantity of water irrigation is automatically comp…
The Internet of Things (IoT) will soon be omnipresent and billions of sensors and actuators will support our industries and well-being. IoT devices are embedded systems that are connected using wireless technology for most of the cases. The availability of the wireless network serving the IoT, the privacy, integrity, and trustworthiness of the data are of critical importance, since IoT will drive businesses and personal decisions. This paper proposes a new approach in the wireless security domain that leverages advanced wireless technology and the emergence of the unmanned aerial system or veh…
A novel approach that combines visible light communication (VLC) with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to simultaneously provide flexible communication and illumination is proposed. To minimize the power consumption, the locations of UAVs and the cell associations are optimized under illumination and communication constraints. An efficient sub-optimal solution that divides the original problem into two sub-problems is proposed. The first sub-problem is modeled as a classical smallest enclosing disk problem to obtain the optimal locations of UAVs, given the cell association. Then, assuming fixed…
Path planning methods for the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in goods delivery have drawn great attention from industry and academics because of its flexibility which is suitable for many situations in the "Last Kilometer" between customer and delivery nodes. However, the complicated situation is still a problem for traditional combinatorial optimization methods. Based on the state-of-the-art Reinforcement Learning (RL), this paper proposed an improved method to achieve path planning for UAVs in complex surroundings: multiple no-fly zones. The improved approach leverages the attention mechanism…
This paper considers an unmanned aerial vehicle enabled-up link non-orthogonal multiple-access system, where multiple mobile users on the ground send independent messages to a unmanned aerial vehicle in the sky via non-orthogonal multiple-access transmission. Our objective is to design the unmanned aerial vehicle dynamic maneuver for maximizing the sum-rate throughput of all mobile ground users over a finite time horizon.
With the increase in use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)/drones, it is important to detect and identify causes of failure in real time for proper recovery from a potential crash-like scenario or post incident forensics analysis. The cause of crash could be either a fault in the sensor/actuator system, a physical damage/attack, or a cyber attack on the drone's software. In this paper, we propose novel architectures based on deep Convolutional and Long Short-Term Memory Neural Networks (CNNs and LSTMs) to detect (via Autoencoder) and classify drone mis-operations based on sensor data. The pro…
