Energy-Aware Design of UAV-mounted RIS Networks for IoT Data Collection

TL;DR

This paper explores the use of UAV-mounted reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) to enhance energy-efficient data collection in IoT networks, proposing new protocols and models to improve coverage, reliability, and energy management.

Contribution

It introduces a novel UAV-mounted RIS system, a new medium access control protocol, and an energy model considering UAV and RIS weight, environmental factors, and UAV velocity.

Findings

Improved coverage probability with UAV-mounted RISs.

Enhanced energy efficiency and network reliability.

Optimized throughput and data collection per flight.

Abstract

Data collection in massive Internet of Things networks requires novel and flexible methods. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are foreseen as a means to collect data rapidly even in remote areas without static telecommunication infrastructure. To this direction, UAV-mounted reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) aid in reducing the hardware requirements and signal processing complexity at the UAV side, while increasing the energy efficiency and reliabilityof the network. Hence, in this paper, we propose the utilization of a UAV-mounted RIS for data collection and study the coverage probability in such networks. Additionally, we propose a novel medium access control protocol based on slotted ALOHA and Code Combining to handle the communication of multiple sensors. To account for the crucial energy issue in UAVs, we devise an energy model that considers both the UAV and the RIS weight, as well as the environmental conditions and the UAV velocity. Finally, we characterize the performance of the proposed data collection scheme by analyzing the average throughput and the average data per flight, while providing useful insights for the design of such networks.