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Drones
Special Issues
UAVs in 5G and beyond Networks
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UAVs in 5G and beyond Networks

A special issue of Drones (ISSN 2504-446X). This special issue belongs to the section "Drone Communications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 October 2023) | Viewed by 10102

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Iván Vidal

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Telematic Engineering Department, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), 28007 Leganés, Madrid, Spain
Interests: unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV); 5G networks; network functions virtualization (NFV); network security
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Francisco Valera

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Telematic Engineering Department, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), 28911 Leganés, Madrid, Spain
Interests: UAV; drones; 5G; NFV; resource management
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The development of the 5th and beyond (6G) generation of mobile networks is having an impact on our society. Its aims are to create extremely flexible network infrastructure capable of integrating geographically distributed computer, storage, and network resources, as well as accommodating highly heterogeneous service demands from different vertical sectors. On the other hand, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are currently gaining traction as enablers of vertical applications, e.g., in precision agriculture, city management, and public safety. In these applications, UAVs are commonly used to generate, process, and transport relevant information (e.g., video, telemetry, and other sensed data). However, recent advancements on the miniaturization of electronic devices have enabled the creation of onboard lightweight hardware platforms for UAVs, offering computer, storage, and network resources. This opens the opportunity to transform UAVs into programmable mobile nodes of a 5G and beyond network. Moreover, these 5G mobile nodes may operate in isolation or be interconnected to build aerial networks (i.e., UAV networks) over delimited geographic areas, supporting the deployment and performant operation of 5G vertical services beyond the access/edge network segments of telecommunication operators.

Within this context, we invite manuscripts for this Special Issue on UAVs in 5G and beyond Networks. Papers are solicited in areas directly related to these topics including, but not limited to, the following:

  • Integration of UAVs into 5G and beyond networks
  • Novel telecommunication services and vertical applications of UAV networks
  • Cloud, edge, and fog computing solutions for UAVs and UAV networks
  • NFV, SDN, and network slicing on UAV networks
  • Network security in UAV networks
  • Reliability, robustness, and resiliency aspects of UAV service provisioning.
  • Novel communication management schemes for multi-interface/multi-technology UAVs
  • 5G location services for UAVs
  • New models for data distribution in aerial networks, e.g., data-centric approaches
  • Flying ad hoc network (FANET) protocols and technologies
  • Deployment, trial and testing of UAV services on 5G experimental facilities or on specific simulation/emulation environments

Dr. Iván Vidal
Dr. Francisco Valera
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Drones is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • UAVs
  • 5G and beyond networks
  • NFV
  • SDN
  • network slicing
  • FANET
  • network security
  • 5G testbeds
  • data-centric models

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

24 pages, 1202 KiB  
Article
Joint Resource Slicing and Vehicle Association for Drone-Assisted Vehicular Networks
by Hang Shen, Tianjing Wang, Yilong Heng and Guangwei Bai
Drones 2023, 7(8), 534; https://doi.org/10.3390/drones7080534 - 16 Aug 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 810
Abstract
The drone-small-cell-assisted air-ground integrated network is a promising architecture for enabling diverse vehicle applications. This paper presents a joint resource slicing and vehicle association framework for drone-assisted vehicular networks, which facilitates spectrum sharing among heterogeneous base stations (BSs) and achieves dynamic resource provisioning [...] Read more.
The drone-small-cell-assisted air-ground integrated network is a promising architecture for enabling diverse vehicle applications. This paper presents a joint resource slicing and vehicle association framework for drone-assisted vehicular networks, which facilitates spectrum sharing among heterogeneous base stations (BSs) and achieves dynamic resource provisioning in the presence of network load dynamics. We formulate the network utility maximization problem as mixed-integer nonlinear programming, considering traffic statistics, quality-of-service (QoS) constraints, varying vehicle locations, load conditions in each cell, and interdrone interference. The original maximization problem is transformed into a biconcave optimization problem to ensure mathematical tractability. An alternate concave search algorithm is then designed to iteratively solve vehicle association patterns and spectrum partitioning among heterogeneous BSs until convergence. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme achieves a significant performance improvement in throughput and spectrum utilization compared with two other baseline schemes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue UAVs in 5G and beyond Networks)
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18 pages, 23718 KiB  
Article
Communication Manager for Hyper-Connected RPAS Environments
by Victor Sanchez-Aguero, Francisco Valera, Ivan Vidal and Borja Nogales
Drones 2023, 7(2), 137; https://doi.org/10.3390/drones7020137 - 15 Feb 2023
Viewed by 1567
Abstract
The revolution of Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPASs), both in the commercial and the research field, has accelerated the arrival of innovative and complex services to the civilian environment within non-segregated airspace. The extensive deployment of these services will still require solving relevant [...] Read more.
The revolution of Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPASs), both in the commercial and the research field, has accelerated the arrival of innovative and complex services to the civilian environment within non-segregated airspace. The extensive deployment of these services will still require solving relevant challenges in several topics, such as regulation, security, or diverse technical defiance. In particular, the services to be provided increasingly demand network resources and performance improvements. This scenario will be strongly exacerbated by the upcoming resources provided by the 5G/6G architectures, where Remotely Piloted Aircrafts (RPAs) will likely support multiple communication interfaces and will be able to establish multi-hop network connectivity with numerous devices leading to an unprecedented hyper-connected RPA environment. In addition, future RPASs will have to enhance the management of their connectivity capabilities to comply with the latest regulations, which demand an uninterrupted link for the Control and Non-Payload Communications (CNPC). This article presents a flexible Communication Infrastructure Manager (CIM) based on Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and virtualization technologies capable of handling the complexity inherent to this ecosystem and being adapted to different operation requirements to cope with all these communication challenges. Finally, the article shows several validation experiences to demonstrate the potential of the CIM versus the standard approach. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue UAVs in 5G and beyond Networks)
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18 pages, 1394 KiB  
Article
Safeguarding UAV Networks against Active Eavesdropping: An Elevation Angle-Distance Trade-Off for Secrecy Enhancement
by Aijia Shen, Junsong Luo, Jin Ning, Yilian Li, Zibin Wang and Bin Duo
Drones 2023, 7(2), 109; https://doi.org/10.3390/drones7020109 - 06 Feb 2023
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1815
Abstract
Because of their low expense and ease of rapid deployment, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are frequently applied in wireless networks. Although the wireless channel is able to broadcast, legitimate communications between UAVs and ground nodes are incredibly susceptible to severe security threats, such [...] Read more.
Because of their low expense and ease of rapid deployment, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are frequently applied in wireless networks. Although the wireless channel is able to broadcast, legitimate communications between UAVs and ground nodes are incredibly susceptible to severe security threats, such as malicious jamming and eavesdropping. Compared with the traditional line-of-sight channel (LC) model, the probabilistic LC (PrLC) model can better describe the practical channel conditions of UAV-to-ground transmission in city areas. Therefore, this paper considers the UAV-enabled networks under the PrLC model in complex city environments. Specifically, when the UAV transmits classified messages to legitimate ground nodes, multiple active eavesdroppers simultaneously eavesdrop on the transmitted confidential information to interfere with the signal and limit the legal transmission. We jointly optimize the communication connection, the three-dimensional (3D) UAV trajectory, and the transmit power of the UAV to increase the average secrecy rate for the worst condition. Because the problem is non-convex, the best solution is formidable to get, this paper designs an iterative algorithm and use the successive convex approximation (SCA) technique to solve it. Compared to other benchmarks, our proposed algorithm, as demonstrated by numerical results, can effectively balance the elevation angle-distance trade-off to improve secrecy rate performance. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue UAVs in 5G and beyond Networks)
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23 pages, 14874 KiB  
Article
Backhaul-Aware User Association and Throughput Maximization in UAV-Aided Hybrid FSO/RF Network
by Muhammad Nafees, Shenjie Huang, John Thompson and Majid Safari
Drones 2023, 7(2), 74; https://doi.org/10.3390/drones7020074 - 19 Jan 2023
Viewed by 1915
Abstract
Free-space optical (FSO) communication is expected to play an indispensable role with high data rates and low system complexity in beyond fifth-generation (B5G) networks. However, infrequent adverse weather conditions can incapacitate its performance. The combination of FSO and radio frequency (RF) has emerged [...] Read more.
Free-space optical (FSO) communication is expected to play an indispensable role with high data rates and low system complexity in beyond fifth-generation (B5G) networks. However, infrequent adverse weather conditions can incapacitate its performance. The combination of FSO and radio frequency (RF) has emerged as an effective alternative for meeting the growing need for high data rates in wireless communication networks. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are also anticipated to play an instrumental role in B5G networks due to their flexible movement and deployment. In this paper, a UAV-aided hybrid FSO/RF backhauling system using a matching game theory (GT) and reinforcement learning (RL) framework is investigated. We deploy a UAV to provide a user offloading service to an already existing ground base station (GBS), which is facing a reduced backhaul capacity due to weather attenuation (e.g., fog). It is considered that the GBS has a pre-installed FSO backhaul connection to a macro-base station (MBS). However, during adverse weather conditions, the FSO backhaul is severely affected, compromising the reliability of the FSO link. With the reduced FSO backhaul capacity, the GBS needs an additional backhaul link to support its backhaul data transmission to the destination MBS. As a result, instead of building an expensive permanent parallel RF link for the rare foggy situation, a UAV can be hired to serve a portion of the users, thereby reducing the GBS load. The users perform a matching game-based procedure to select the base station (BS) of their choice to maximize their utility. The UAV is deployed at an optimal altitude, and the bandwidth partition between the GBS and the UAV is optimized to maximize the system throughput using RL. Real weather data from the cities of Edinburgh and London in the U.K. are used to evaluate the performance of the system. The numerical results show the superiority and effectiveness of the proposed scheme compared to conventional methods. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue UAVs in 5G and beyond Networks)
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21 pages, 4190 KiB  
Article
A Group Handover Scheme for Supporting Drone Services in IoT-Based 5G Network Architectures
by Emmanouil Skondras, Ioannis Kosmopoulos, Emmanouel T. Michailidis, Angelos Michalas and Dimitrios D. Vergados
Drones 2022, 6(12), 425; https://doi.org/10.3390/drones6120425 - 17 Dec 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2170
Abstract
Next generation mobile networks are expected to integrate multiple drones organized in Flying Ad Hoc Networks (FANETs) to support demanding and diverse services. The highly mobile drones should always be connected to the network in order to satisfy the strict requirements of upcoming [...] Read more.
Next generation mobile networks are expected to integrate multiple drones organized in Flying Ad Hoc Networks (FANETs) to support demanding and diverse services. The highly mobile drones should always be connected to the network in order to satisfy the strict requirements of upcoming applications. As the number of drones increases, they burden the network with the management of signaling and continuous monitoring of the drones during data transmission. Therefore, designing transmission mechanisms for fifth-generation (5G) drone-aided networks and using clustering algorithms for their grouping is of paramount importance. In this paper, a clustering and selection algorithm of the cluster head is proposed together with an efficient Group Handover (GHO) scheme that details how the respective Point of Access (PoA) groups will be clustered. Subsequently, for each cluster, the PoA elects a Cluster Head (CH), which is responsible for manipulating the mobility of the cluster by orchestrating the handover initiation (HO initiation), the network selection, and the handover execution (HO execution) processes. Moreover, the members of the cluster are informed about the impending HO from the CH. As a result, they establish new uplink and downlink communication channels to exchange data packets. In order to evaluate the proposed HO scheme, extensive simulations are carried out for a next-generation drone network architecture that supports Internet of Things (IoT) and multimedia services. This architecture relies on IEEE 802.11p Wireless Access for Vehicular Environment (WAVE) Road Side Units (RSUs) as well as Long-Term Evolution Advanced (LTE-A) and IEEE 802.16 Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX). Furthermore, the proposed scheme is also evaluated in a real-world scenario using a testbed deployed in a controlled laboratory environment. Both simulation and real-world experimental results verify that the proposed scheme outperforms existing HO algorithms. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue UAVs in 5G and beyond Networks)
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