Supporting UAVs with Edge Computing: A Review of Opportunities and Challenges

Over the last years, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have seen significant advancements in sensor capabilities and computational abilities, allowing for efficient autonomous navigation and visual tracking applications. However, the demand for computationally complex tasks has increased faster than advances in battery technology. This opens up possibilities for improvements using edge computing. In edge computing, edge servers can achieve lower latency responses compared to traditional cloud servers through strategic geographic deployments. Furthermore, these servers can maintain superior computational performance compared to UAVs, as they are not limited by battery constraints. Combining these technologies by aiding UAVs with edge servers, research finds measurable improvements in task completion speed, energy efficiency, and reliability across multiple applications and industries. This systematic literature review aims to analyze the current state of research and collect, select, and extract the key areas where UAV activities can be supported and improved through edge computing

UAV Based 5G Network: A Practical Survey Study

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are anticipated to significantly contribute to the development of new wireless networks that could handle high-speed transmissions and enable wireless broadcasts. When compared to communications that rely on permanent infrastructure, UAVs offer a number of advantages, including flexible deployment, dependable line-of-sight (LoS) connection links, and more design degrees of freedom because of controlled mobility. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) combined with 5G networks and Internet of Things (IoT) components have the potential to completely transform a variety of industries. UAVs may transfer massive volumes of data in real-time by utilizing the low latency and high-speed abilities of 5G networks, opening up a variety of applications like remote sensing, precision farming, and disaster response. This study of UAV communication with regard to 5G/B5G WLANs is presented in this research. The three UAV-assisted MEC network scenarios also include the specifics for the allocation of resources and optimization. We also concentrate on the case where a UAV does task computation in addition to serving as a MEC server to examine wind farm turbines. This paper covers the key implementation difficulties of UAV-assisted MEC, such as optimum UAV deployment, wind models, and coupled trajectory-computation performance optimization, in order to promote widespread implementations of UAV-assisted MEC in practice. The primary problem for 5G and beyond 5G (B5G) is delivering broadband access to various device kinds. Prior to discussing associated research issues faced by the developing integrated network design, we first provide a brief overview of the background information as well as the networks that integrate space, aviation, and land

A Survey on Cellular-connected UAVs: Design Challenges, Enabling 5G/B5G Innovations, and Experimental Advancements

As an emerging field of aerial robotics, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have gained significant research interest within the wireless networking research community. As soon as national legislations allow UAVs to fly autonomously, we will see swarms of UAV populating the sky of our smart cities to accomplish different missions: parcel delivery, infrastructure monitoring, event filming, surveillance, tracking, etc. The UAV ecosystem can benefit from existing 5G/B5G cellular networks, which can be exploited in different ways to enhance UAV communications. Because of the inherent characteristics of UAV pertaining to flexible mobility in 3D space, autonomous operation and intelligent placement, these smart devices cater to wide range of wireless applications and use cases. This work aims at presenting an in-depth exploration of integration synergies between 5G/B5G cellular systems and UAV technology, where the UAV is integrated as a new aerial User Equipment (UE) to existing cellular networks. In this integration, the UAVs perform the role of flying users within cellular coverage, thus they are termed as cellular-connected UAVs (a.k.a. UAV-UE, drone-UE, 5G-connected drone, or aerial user). The main focus of this work is to present an extensive study of integration challenges along with key 5G/B5G technological innovations and ongoing efforts in design prototyping and field trials corroborating cellular-connected UAVs. This study highlights recent progress updates with respect to 3GPP standardization and emphasizes socio-economic concerns that must be accounted before successful adoption of this promising technology. Various open problems paving the path to future research opportunities are also discussed.Comment: 30 pages, 18 figures, 9 tables, 102 references, journal submissio

Edge Video Analytics: A Survey on Applications, Systems and Enabling Techniques

Video, as a key driver in the global explosion of digital information, can create tremendous benefits for human society. Governments and enterprises are deploying innumerable cameras for a variety of applications, e.g., law enforcement, emergency management, traffic control, and security surveillance, all facilitated by video analytics (VA). This trend is spurred by the rapid advancement of deep learning (DL), which enables more precise models for object classification, detection, and tracking. Meanwhile, with the proliferation of Internet-connected devices, massive amounts of data are generated daily, overwhelming the cloud. Edge computing, an emerging paradigm that moves workloads and services from the network core to the network edge, has been widely recognized as a promising solution. The resulting new intersection, edge video analytics (EVA), begins to attract widespread attention. Nevertheless, only a few loosely-related surveys exist on this topic. The basic concepts of EVA (e.g., definition, architectures) were not fully elucidated due to the rapid development of this domain. To fill these gaps, we provide a comprehensive survey of the recent efforts on EVA. In this paper, we first review the fundamentals of edge computing, followed by an overview of VA. The EVA system and its enabling techniques are discussed next. In addition, we introduce prevalent frameworks and datasets to aid future researchers in the development of EVA systems. Finally, we discuss existing challenges and foresee future research directions. We believe this survey will help readers comprehend the relationship between VA and edge computing, and spark new ideas on EVA.Comment: 31 pages, 13 figure

Maritime Robotics and Autonomous Systems Operations: Exploring Pathways for Overcoming International Techno-Regulatory Data Barriers

The current regulatory landscape that applies to maritime service robotics, aptly termed as robotics and autonomous systems (RAS), is quite complex. When it comes to patents, there are multifarious considerations in relation to vessel survey, inspection, and maintenance processes under national and international law. Adherence is challenging, given that the traditional delivery methods are viewed as unsafe, strenuous, and laborious. Service robotics, namely micro aerial vehicles (MAVs) or drones, magnetic-wheeled crawlers (crawlers), and remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), function by relying on the architecture of the Internet of Robotic Things. The aforementioned are being introduced as time-saving apparatuses, accompanied by the promise to acquire concrete and sufficient data for the identification of vessel structural weaknesses with the highest level of accuracy to facilitate decision-making processes upon which temporary and permanent measures are contingent. Nonetheless, a noticeable critical issue associated with RAS effective deployment revolves around non-personal data governance, which comprises the main analytical focus of this research effort. The impetus behind this study stems from the need to enquire whether “data” provisions within the realm of international technological regulatory (techno-regulatory) framework is sufficient, well organized, and harmonized so that there are no current or future conflicts with promulgated theoretical dimensions of data that drive all subject matter-oriented actions. As is noted from the relevant expository research, the challenges are many. Engineering RAS to perfection is not the end-all and be-all. Collateral impediments must be avoided. A safety net needs to be devised to protect non-personal data. The results here indicate that established data decision dimensions call for data security and protection, as well as a consideration of ownership and liability details. An analysis of the state-of-the-art and the comparative results assert that the abovementioned remain neglected in the current international setting. The findings reveal specific data barriers within the existing international framework. The ways forward include strategic actions to remove data barriers towards overall efficacy of maritime RAS operations. The overall findings indicate that an effective transition to RAS operations requires optimizing the international regulatory framework for opening the pathways for effective RAS operations. Conclusions were drawn based on the premise that policy reform is inevitable in order to push the RAS agenda forward before the emanation of 6G and the era of the Internet of Everything, with harmonization and further standardization being very high priority issues