Swarm of UAVs for Network Management in 6G: A Technical Review

Fifth-generation (5G) cellular networks have led to the implementation of beyond 5G (B5G) networks, which are capable of incorporating autonomous services to swarm of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). They provide capacity expansion strategies to address massive connectivity issues and guarantee ultra-high throughput and low latency, especially in extreme or emergency situations where network density, bandwidth, and traffic patterns fluctuate. On the one hand, 6G technology integrates AI/ML, IoT, and blockchain to establish ultra-reliable, intelligent, secure, and ubiquitous UAV networks. 6G networks, on the other hand, rely on new enabling technologies such as air interface and transmission technologies, as well as a unique network design, posing new challenges for the swarm of UAVs. Keeping these challenges in mind, this article focuses on the security and privacy, intelligence, and energy-efficiency issues faced by swarms of UAVs operating in 6G mobile networks. In this state-of-the-art review, we integrated blockchain and AI/ML with UAV networks utilizing the 6G ecosystem. The key findings are then presented, and potential research challenges are identified. We conclude the review by shedding light on future research in this emerging field of research.Comment: 19,

Radio Resource Management for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Assisted Wireless Communications and Networking

In recent years, employing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) as aerial communication platforms or users is envisioned as a promising solution to enhance the performance of the existing wireless communication systems. However, applying UAVs for information technology applications also introduces many new challenges. This thesis focuses on the UAV-assisted wireless communication and networking, and aims to address the challenges through exploiting and designing efficient radio resource management methods. Specifically, four research topics are studied in this thesis. Firstly, to address the constraint of network heterogeneity and leverage the benefits of diversity of UAVs, a hierarchical air-ground heterogeneous network architecture enabled by software defined networking is proposed, which integrates both high and low altitude platforms into conventional terrestrial networks to provide additional capacity enhancement and expand the coverage of current network systems. Secondly, to address the constraint of link disconnection and guarantee the reliable communications among UAVs as aerial user equipment to perform sensing tasks, a robust resource allocation scheme is designed while taking into account the dynamic features and different requirements for different UAV transmission connections. Thirdly, to address the constraint of privacy and security threat and motivate the spectrum sharing between cellular and UAV operators, a blockchain-based secure spectrum trading framework is constructed where mobile network operators and UAV operators can share spectrum in a distributed and trusted environment based on blockchain technology to protect users' privacy and data security. Fourthly, to address the constraint of low endurance of UAV and prolong its flight time as an aerial base station for delivering communication coverage in a disaster area, an energy efficiency maximization problem jointly optimizing user association, UAV's transmission power and trajectory is studied in which laser charging is exploited to supply sustainable energy to enable the UAV to operate in the sky for a long time