UAV Assisted Data Collection for Internet of Things: A Survey

TL;DR

This survey reviews UAV-assisted data collection for IoT, covering system models, key technologies, and open challenges to guide future research in this rapidly evolving field.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of scenarios, models, and technologies for UAV-based IoT data collection, highlighting open problems and future directions.

Findings

Reviewed system and network models for UAV-assisted IoT data collection.

Analyzed key technologies like sensor clustering and path planning.

Discussed open challenges in multiple access and joint sensing.

Abstract

Thanks to the advantages of flexible deployment and high mobility, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been widely applied in the areas of disaster management, agricultural plant protection, environment monitoring and so on. With the development of UAV and sensor technologies, UAV assisted data collection for Internet of Things (IoT) has attracted increasing attentions. In this article, the scenarios and key technologies of UAV assisted data collection are comprehensively reviewed. First, we present the system model including the network model and mathematical model of UAV assisted data collection for IoT. Then, we review the key technologies including clustering of sensors, UAV data collection mode as well as joint path planning and resource allocation. Finally, the open problems are discussed from the perspectives of efficient multiple access as well as joint sensing and data collection. This article hopefully provides some guidelines and insights for researchers in the area of UAV assisted data collection for IoT.