3,003 research outputs found
An Overview of Drone Energy Consumption Factors and Models
At present, there is a growing demand for drones with diverse capabilities
that can be used in both civilian and military applications, and this topic is
receiving increasing attention. When it comes to drone operations, the amount
of energy they consume is a determining factor in their ability to achieve
their full potential. According to this, it appears that it is necessary to
identify the factors affecting the energy consumption of the unmanned air
vehicle (UAV) during the mission process, as well as examine the general
factors that influence the consumption of energy. This chapter aims to provide
an overview of the current state of research in the area of UAV energy
consumption and provide general categorizations of factors affecting UAV's
energy consumption as well as an investigation of different energy models
Machine Learning for Wireless Connectivity and Security of Cellular-Connected UAVs
Cellular-connected unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) will inevitably be
integrated into future cellular networks as new aerial mobile users. Providing
cellular connectivity to UAVs will enable a myriad of applications ranging from
online video streaming to medical delivery. However, to enable a reliable
wireless connectivity for the UAVs as well as a secure operation, various
challenges need to be addressed such as interference management, mobility
management and handover, cyber-physical attacks, and authentication. In this
paper, the goal is to expose the wireless and security challenges that arise in
the context of UAV-based delivery systems, UAV-based real-time multimedia
streaming, and UAV-enabled intelligent transportation systems. To address such
challenges, artificial neural network (ANN) based solution schemes are
introduced. The introduced approaches enable the UAVs to adaptively exploit the
wireless system resources while guaranteeing a secure operation, in real-time.
Preliminary simulation results show the benefits of the introduced solutions
for each of the aforementioned cellular-connected UAV application use case.Comment: This manuscript has been accepted for publication in IEEE Wireless
Communication
Generative AI for Unmanned Vehicle Swarms: Challenges, Applications and Opportunities
With recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, unmanned
vehicle swarms have received great attention from both academia and industry
due to their potential to provide services that are difficult and dangerous to
perform by humans. However, learning and coordinating movements and actions for
a large number of unmanned vehicles in complex and dynamic environments
introduce significant challenges to conventional AI methods. Generative AI
(GAI), with its capabilities in complex data feature extraction,
transformation, and enhancement, offers great potential in solving these
challenges of unmanned vehicle swarms. For that, this paper aims to provide a
comprehensive survey on applications, challenges, and opportunities of GAI in
unmanned vehicle swarms. Specifically, we first present an overview of unmanned
vehicles and unmanned vehicle swarms as well as their use cases and existing
issues. Then, an in-depth background of various GAI techniques together with
their capabilities in enhancing unmanned vehicle swarms are provided. After
that, we present a comprehensive review on the applications and challenges of
GAI in unmanned vehicle swarms with various insights and discussions. Finally,
we highlight open issues of GAI in unmanned vehicle swarms and discuss
potential research directions.Comment: 23 page
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
Architecture and Information Requirements to Assess and Predict Flight Safety Risks During Highly Autonomous Urban Flight Operations
As aviation adopts new and increasingly complex operational paradigms, vehicle types, and technologies to broaden airspace capability and efficiency, maintaining a safe system will require recognition and timely mitigation of new safety issues as they emerge and before significant consequences occur. A shift toward a more predictive risk mitigation capability becomes critical to meet this challenge. In-time safety assurance comprises monitoring, assessment, and mitigation functions that proactively reduce risk in complex operational environments where the interplay of hazards may not be known (and therefore not accounted for) during design. These functions can also help to understand and predict emergent effects caused by the increased use of automation or autonomous functions that may exhibit unexpected non-deterministic behaviors. The envisioned monitoring and assessment functions can look for precursors, anomalies, and trends (PATs) by applying model-based and data-driven methods. Outputs would then drive downstream mitigation(s) if needed to reduce risk. These mitigations may be accomplished using traditional design revision processes or via operational (and sometimes automated) mechanisms. The latter refers to the in-time aspect of the system concept. This report comprises architecture and information requirements and considerations toward enabling such a capability within the domain of low altitude highly autonomous urban flight operations. This domain may span, for example, public-use surveillance missions flown by small unmanned aircraft (e.g., infrastructure inspection, facility management, emergency response, law enforcement, and/or security) to transportation missions flown by larger aircraft that may carry passengers or deliver products. Caveat: Any stated requirements in this report should be considered initial requirements that are intended to drive research and development (R&D). These initial requirements are likely to evolve based on R&D findings, refinement of operational concepts, industry advances, and new industry or regulatory policies or standards related to safety assurance
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