Advanced Technologies in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

A special issue of Electronics (ISSN 2079-9292). This special issue belongs to the section "Networks".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 April 2024 | Viewed by 4572

Special Issue Editors

School of Information and Communication Engineering, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing 100876, China
Interests: machine learning in wireless networks; UAV communication; internet of vehicles
School of Information and Communication Engineering, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing 100876, China
Interests: integrated sensing and communication; Wi-Fi sensing; intelligent wireless communication
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In recent years, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have become one of the trendiest topics in both academic and industry circles. Due to their advancements of high mobility and scalability, as well as flexibility in maneuvering, UAVs are widely used in search and rescue, photography, precision agriculture, path planning, civil constructions, etc. Wireless communication is one of the most important technologies to support real-time delivery of the information from the above applications. As communication technology evolves from 5G to 6G, UAVs  are being integrated into cellular networks to act as base stations or relays to assist with terrestrial wireless communications. In addition, new technologies such as integrated sensing and communication and intelligent reflective surfaces (IRSs) to be used with 6G, as well as advances in artificial intelligence, sensing technology, and dynamic system control methodologies,  provide opportunities to address the challenges regarding asymmetric quality-of-service (QoS) requirements for downlink and uplink transmission, and regarding the stringent constraints imposed by the size, weight, and power (SWAP) limitations of UAVs. Therefore, it is necessary to explore the advanced algorithms, theories, and technologies as applied to UAVs.

This Special Issue will focus on key theoretical and practical design issues for “Advanced Technologies in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles”. Topics of interest in this Special Issue include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Network architecture for cellular-connected UAVs;
  • Spectrum management and multiple-access schemes for UAVs;
  • Intelligent energy usage and replenishment;
  • Energy-efficient UAV communications;
  • IRS-aided UAV communications;
  • Interference and resource management in UAV-assisted wireless communication;
  • Machine learning in UAV-assisted wireless communication;
  • UAV-aided information offloading;
  • UAV–IRS communication network;
  • UAV millimeter-wave communication network;
  • Integrated sensing and communication for UAVs;
  • Physical layer security and techniques in wireless networks with UAVs.

Dr. Zhiqun Hu
Dr. Zhaoming Lu
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • UAV communication
  • artificial intelligence
  • multi-UAV coordination
  • interference and resource management
  • intelligent reflective surface
  • physical layer security
  • integrated sensing and communication

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

22 pages, 3112 KiB  
Article
Research on Identity Authentication Scheme for UAV Communication Network
by Tao Xia, Menglin Wang, Jun He, Shaofeng Lin, Yongqi Shi and Liyuan Guo
Electronics 2023, 12(13), 2917; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12132917 - 03 Jul 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1117
Abstract
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) play a vital role in many fields, such as agricultural planting, security patrol, emergency rescue, and so on. The development and implementation of these devices have become vital in terms of reachability and usability. Unfortunately, as drones become more [...] Read more.
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) play a vital role in many fields, such as agricultural planting, security patrol, emergency rescue, and so on. The development and implementation of these devices have become vital in terms of reachability and usability. Unfortunately, as drones become more widely used in various fields, they become more and more vulnerable to attacks and security threats, including, but not limited to, eavesdropping, man-in-the-middle attacks, and known session key attacks. In order to deal with these attacks and security threats and meet the needs of lightweight UAV communication, a secure and efficient authentication scheme is essential. To meet the security and lightweight requirements of an identity authentication scheme in a UAV communication network, this paper proposes an identity authentication scheme sdronelig based on an elliptic curve cryptosystem. The scheme realizes the mutual authentication and session key agreement configuration between the UAV and the ground station, and the authentication and key agreement between the UAVs can be realized with the help of the control station. The sdronelig authentication scheme is based on the ECDH key exchange protocol in the elliptic curve cryptography algorithm and adopts the MAC message authentication code technology and the method of pre-calculating part of the process. Under the premise of ensuring the security of the UAV communication network, the authentication efficiency is improved, the communication overhead and communication times are reduced, and the lightweight requirement of the UAV authentication scheme is met. Additionally, a formal verification tool is used to verify the security of the sdronelig scheme under the Dolev-Yao threat model, which is suitable for UAV networks. Finally, a detailed comparative study was conducted on security features, communication overhead, the number of communications, and computational overhead. The results show that the proposed sdronelig authentication scheme not only provides superior security features but also has better or comparable overhead compared to other existing authentication schemes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Technologies in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles)
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12 pages, 951 KiB  
Article
Multi-Round Auction-Based Resource Allocation in Multi-Access Edge Computing Assisted Satellite Networks
by Wenyuan Xie, Liming Lin, Ting Lyu and Haitao Xu
Electronics 2023, 12(11), 2482; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12112482 - 31 May 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 936
Abstract
In this paper, we study the resource allocation problem of multi-access edge computing (MEC) assisted satellite networks in ocean areas. Considering the demand heterogeneity of users and the limited resources of satellites, we propose an online multi-round auction-based resource allocation (OMARA) approach for [...] Read more.
In this paper, we study the resource allocation problem of multi-access edge computing (MEC) assisted satellite networks in ocean areas. Considering the demand heterogeneity of users and the limited resources of satellites, we propose an online multi-round auction-based resource allocation (OMARA) approach for resource trading between satellites and users, where satellites are the resource sellers and users are the related resource buyers. The proposed approach can effectively determine the price for the trading of resources and can match the service relationships accordingly between satellites and ground users. Finally, it is shown by the simulation experimental results that the proposed approach outperforms the other existing algorithms in maximizing service satisfaction. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Technologies in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles)
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18 pages, 2674 KiB  
Article
Security Resource Scheduling Algorithm for Intelligent UAV Communication Network Based on Optimized Subgraph Isomorphism and Link Partition
by Yanyan Han, Jiangping Yu, Peiliang Zuo, Zhanzhen Wei, Xin Jin, Kaili Dou, Chao Guo and Haitao Xu
Electronics 2023, 12(9), 2096; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12092096 - 04 May 2023
Viewed by 881
Abstract
The resource scheduling problem of UAV communication networks has always been a hot research issue in the current environment. However, most of the current research focuses on meeting the user’s time cost requirements and rarely considers the user’s security requirements in the scheduling [...] Read more.
The resource scheduling problem of UAV communication networks has always been a hot research issue in the current environment. However, most of the current research focuses on meeting the user’s time cost requirements and rarely considers the user’s security requirements in the scheduling process. To solve the problems of low efficiency, more resource fragments, low network reliability, and unbalanced load, this paper improves the virtual network mapping model into a three-layer structure consisting of a security service request layer, virtual network provider layer, and security resource layer, so that it can be applied to the special scenario of security resource scheduling in an unmanned aerial communication network. An intelligent UAV communication network security resource scheduling algorithm based on optimized subgraph isomorphism and link segmentation is proposed. Intelligent UAVs can predict all possible access nodes and intelligently provide network services. The algorithm first improves and enriches the node constraint conditions and evaluation indicators, integrates the node resource attributes and topology attributes, optimizes the sorting process, then calculates the mapping domain in advance, considers the regional comprehensive resource capacity to balance the load, and finally combines the subgraph isomorphism and link segmentation technology to carry out a one-stage mapping scheduling to achieve the security service request in the network and the efficient allocation of network resources required to provide security services. The simulation results of the OMNeT++ show that the proposed algorithm improves the mapping success rate and the long-term average cost-benefit ratio of the UAVs. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Technologies in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles)
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19 pages, 513 KiB  
Article
Survivability Analysis of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Network based on Dynamic Weighted Clustering Algorithm with Dual Cluster Heads
by Yujing Zhang, Zhiqun Hu, Zhifei Wang, Xiangming Wen and Zhaoming Lu
Electronics 2023, 12(7), 1743; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12071743 - 06 Apr 2023
Viewed by 1169
Abstract
The unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) network is vulnerable due to the high mobility and energy-constrained characteristics of UAVs. Nonetheless, as a UAV-based communication network, a stable network topology is crucial for efficient communication. To this end, in this paper, we propose a dynamic [...] Read more.
The unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) network is vulnerable due to the high mobility and energy-constrained characteristics of UAVs. Nonetheless, as a UAV-based communication network, a stable network topology is crucial for efficient communication. To this end, in this paper, we propose a dynamic weighted clustering algorithm with dual cluster heads (DWCA-DCH) in this paper to deploy the UAV network. To trade off communication efficiency and lifetime, the selection of prime and backup cluster heads is designed by synthetically considering communication quality and remaining energy of the UAV. Furthermore, a survivability analysis method based on Markov process (SAM-MP) is constructed to analyze the survivability performance of the proposed UAV network based on DWCA-DCH when the UAV node suffers from energy exhausting or accidents. The simulation results show that the survivability and stability of the UAV cluster ad hoc network based on DWCA-DCH proposed in this paper is improved by about 35% compared with the single cluster head network. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Technologies in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles)
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