Adaptive Energy Efficient Communications for Hybrid Aerial-Terrestrial Systems

TL;DR

This paper proposes a real-time adaptive transmission strategy for hybrid aerial-terrestrial networks to enhance energy efficiency, especially in emergency scenarios with power-constrained devices, by dynamically selecting communication links based on channel conditions.

Contribution

It introduces a novel adaptive transmission approach that optimally switches between direct and cooperative links in aerial-terrestrial systems to improve energy efficiency.

Findings

Adaptive strategy increases energy efficiency in simulations.

Cooperation among ground terminals enhances uplink energy savings.

Dynamic link selection adapts to channel variations effectively.

Abstract

Aerial telecommunications networks based on Low Altitude Platforms (LAPs) are expected to optimally meet the urgent needs of emergency relief and recovery operations for tackling large scale natural disasters. The energy efficient operation of such networks is important given the fact that the entire network infrastructure including the battery operated ground terminals, exhibit requirements to operate under power constrained situations. In this paper, we propose and evaluate a real-time adaptive transmission strategy for dynamic selection of direct and cooperative links based on the channel conditions for improved energy efficiency. We show that the cooperation between mobile terrestrial terminals on the ground could improve the energy efficiency in the uplink depending on the temporal behavior of the terrestrial and the aerial uplink channels. The simulation analysis corroborates that the adaptive transmission technique improves the overall energy efficiency of the network.