A UAV-Enabled Time-Sensitive Data Collection Scheme for Grassland Monitoring Edge Networks

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel UAV-enabled data collection scheme tailored for grassland monitoring edge networks, addressing unique challenges like data volume variability, timing, and routing constraints to improve ecological data gathering.

Contribution

It formulates a mixed-integer programming model for the time-sensitive data collection problem and proposes a cooperative heuristic algorithm leveraging temporal-spatial correlations.

Findings

The model accurately captures the data collection constraints and dynamics.

The heuristic algorithm effectively solves the complex TSDCMP.

Simulation results validate the approach's efficiency and practicality.

Abstract

Grassland monitoring is essential for the sustainable development of grassland resources. Traditional Internet of Things (IoT) devices generate critical ecological data, making data loss unacceptable, but the harsh environment complicates data collection. Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) and mobile edge computing (MEC) offer efficient data collection solutions, enhancing performance on resource-limited mobile devices. In this context, this paper is the first to investigate a UAV-enabled time-sensitive data collection problem (TSDCMP) within grassland monitoring edge networks (GMENs). Unlike many existing data collection scenarios, this problem has three key challenges. First, the total amount of data collected depends significantly on the data collection duration and arrival time of UAV at each access point (AP). Second, the volume of data at different APs varies among regions due to differences in monitoring objects and vegetation coverage. Third, the service requests time and locations from APs are often not adjacent topologically. To address these issues, We formulate the TSDCMP for UAV-enabled GMENs as a mixed-integer programming model in a single trip. This model considers constraints such as the limited energy of UAV, the coupled routing and time scheduling, and the state of APs and UAV arrival time. Subsequently, we propose a novel cooperative heuristic algorithm based on temporal-spatial correlations (CHTSC) that integrates a modified dynamic programming (MDP) into an iterated local search to solve the TSDCMP for UAV-enabled GMENs. This approach fully takes into account the temporal and spatial relationships between consecutive service requests from APs. Systematic simulation studies demonstrate that the mixed-integer programming model effectively represents the TSDCMP within UAV-enabled GMENs.