Advanced Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Wireless Communication and Networking Technologies

Dear Colleagues,

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) play an important role in wireless communications and networks thanks to their low cost, as well as their flexible and rapid deployment, making them integral in a hot spot or emergency environment. However, the roles of UAVs need to be further defined for next-generation wireless networks, such as the forthcoming 6G. For the next generation, wireless communications are expected to be deployed everywhere in an integrated space–air–ground–sea environment and are expected to use massive antennas and diverse spectrums. In this context, UAV-based wireless communications and networks encounter many challenges such as non-stationary channels, intricate spectrum allocation, and complicated functionality tradeoff between sensing and communications. Thus, this Special Issue seeks to comprehensively investigate the topic “Advanced Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Wireless Communication and Networking Technologies” by clarifying the challenges, opportunities, and future directions.

This Special Issue aims to feature original research and review articles discussing communication theories, radio channels, diverse functionalities enabled by UAVs, real-world applications, and implementations relevant to UAV-based wireless communications and networks. Through this Special Issue, our goal is to collect manuscripts describing the most recent advances and technical findings addressing problems encountered in both theoretical and practical applications for UAV communication and networking. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

• The channel characterization, modeling, and estimation for UAV communications
• The performance analysis and optimization of UAV communications
• UAV-assisted integrated sensing and communications;
• Smart antenna systems (including reconfigurable intelligent surfaces for UAVs);
• UAV-enabled non-terrestrial network architecture;
• UAV-enabled air-to-ground communications;
• The positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) of UAV networks;
• The real-world implementation of UAV communications;
• The trends and future directions of UAVs in wireless networks.

Dr. Zhuangzhuang Cui
Dr. Konstantinos Maliatsos
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 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.

• 5G-A/6G wireless communications
• aerial network
• cellular-connected UAVs
• channel modeling
• non-terrestrial networks
• smart antenna systems
• unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)
• UAV-vehicle communication
• sensing and communication