Ultra-Reliable Device-Centric Uplink Communications in Airborne Networks: A Spatiotemporal Analysis

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel ultra-reliable device-centric uplink scheme for airborne networks using UAV-mounted base stations, optimizing hovering and traveling times to enhance reliability, efficiency, and IoT device battery life.

Contribution

It develops new spatiotemporal models for UAV-based uplink communication, analyzing the impact of UAV mobility and timing on network performance, which is a significant advancement over stationary UAV schemes.

Findings

URDC-UL improves link reliability and energy efficiency.

Hovering to traveling time ratio critically affects performance.

Optimized timing enhances IoT device battery life.

Abstract

This paper proposes an ultra-reliable device-centric uplink (URDC-UL) communication scheme for airborne networks. In particular, base stations (BSs) are mounted on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that travel to schedule UL transmissions and collect data from devices. To attain an ultra-reliable unified device-centric performance, the UL connection is established when the UAV-BS is hovering at the nearest possible distance from the scheduled device. The performance of the proposed URDC-UL scheme is benchmarked against a stationary UAV-centric uplink (SUC-UL) scheme where the devices are scheduled to communicate to UAV-BSs that are continuously hovering at static locations. Utilizing stochastic geometry and queueing theory, novel spatiotemporal mathematical models are developed, which account for the UAV-BS spatial densities, mobility, altitude, antenna directivity, ground-to-air channel, and temporal traffic, among other factors. The results demonstrate the sensitivity of the URDC-UL scheme to the ratio between hovering and traveling time. In particular, the hovering to traveling time ratio should be carefully adjusted to maximize the harvested performance gains for the URDC-UL scheme in terms of link reliability, transmission rate, energy efficiency, and delay. Exploiting the URDC-UL scheme allows IoT devices to minimize transmission power while maintaining unified reliable transmission. This preserves the device's battery and addresses a critical IoT design challenge.