An optimal UAV deployment algorithm for bridging communication

Abstract

In recent years, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have attracted the attention of both the military and civilians because of their deployment in situations where part of the communication infrastructure is destroyed due to bomb blast, earthquake, flood, military operations or landslides. Also UAVs can be used in operations such as search and rescue, surveillance, forest fire monitoring, and border patrolling. Deployment of a UAV in a position where it can provide maximum coverage and high throughput is one of the vital problem that needs to be addressed. In this paper, we have proposed an optimal UAV deployment algorithm (OUDA) in order to bridge communication between two static nodes on the ground. In the proposed algorithm the UAV deploys to a position where it can provide the best communication facilities to both the nodes based on the received signal strength (RSS), and distance between nodes and UAV. Simulation results showed that the algorithm provides maximum throughput and low bit error rate (BER) once the UAV is fixed to an optimal position.