Drone-Assisted Communications for Remote Areas and Disaster Relief

TL;DR

This paper proposes an energy-efficient UAV-assisted wireless communication system designed for remote, crowded, and disaster-affected areas, optimizing access, backhaul, and UAV deployment to meet user demands.

Contribution

It introduces an integrated end-to-end UAV communication framework with energy-aware routing to minimize UAV deployment while ensuring connectivity.

Findings

Energy-aware routing extends UAV operational time.

Optimized UAV placement reduces resource usage.

Effective support for remote and disaster zones.

Abstract

We explore an end-to-end (including access and backhaul links) UAV-assisted wireless communication system, considering both uplink and downlink traffics, with the goal of supporting demand of the Ground Users (GUs) using the minimum number of UAVs. Moreover, in order to extend the operational (flight) time of UAVs, we exploit an energy-aware routing scheme. Our intention is to design and analyze the access and backhaul connectivity of a drone-assisted communication network for remote and crowded areas and disaster relief, while minimizing the resources required i.e., the number of UAVs.