A novel drone recovery system in IoT environment

Abstract

The rise of IoT has led to an increase in drone usage. Losing connection with a drone during a mission can be dangerous, particularly in tasks like search and rescue or surveillance. The current recovery systems for lost drones can only retrieve the drone after it crashes, which endangers mission success and data confidentiality. Moreover, IoT networks restrict device connections to authorised nodes, which can lead to drone loss even if a valid network is within range. To address these concerns, this paper proposes a new protocol for recovering lost drones before they crash. The protocol operates in two phases: the first detects connection attempts between the lost drone and neighboring fog nodes, establishing indirect connections with responsible fog nodes until the drone is within range. The second phase triggers the free drones to recover the lost drone through an ad-hoc network. The proposed method recovers lost drones in most scenarios.