Abstract
Rapid increases in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) applications are attributed to severe spectrum collision issues, especially when UAVs operate in spectrum scarce environments, such as urban areas. Dynamic air-to-ground (A2G) link solutions can mitigate this issue by utilizing programmable communication hardware in the air and real-time assignment of spectrum resources to achieve high-throughput and low-latency connectivity between UAVs and operators. To mitigate the high-computation issue among ground control station (GCS) networks and provide a broad communication coverage for large number of UAVs, we propose an advanced UAV A2G communication solution integrated with the dynamic spectrum management (DSM) and network function virtualization (NFV) technology to serve urban operations. The edge-cutting UAV communication technologies are surveyed. The proposed scheme is discussed in terms of the high-level system architecture, virtual network architecture, specific virtual functions (SVFs), and affiliated operation support databases. Some major research challenges are highlighted and the possible directions of future research are identified.
Highlights
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have drawn tremendous attention in recent decades due to their advantages in high mobility and convenient deployment; the inherent high-dynamic characteristic [23] in UAVs brings additional challenges in the information exchange between UAVs and users, demanding a low-latency and highthroughput wireless air-to-ground (A2G) link
Some other units composed in the virtual networks (VNs) are highlighted; for instance, a switch [26] is required for message exchange between the VN and other units, and integration of baseband units (BBUs) is required to realize defined functions, and BBU pool units are built up as local cluster heads in Fig. 2a to manage computational loads and storage based on the global spectrum environment
With the explosive growth of operator and UAV numbers, the voluminous data, and requirements for onboard SWaP, efficient network construction and optimal utilization of spectrum resources, UAV A2G claims a deep rethinking of communication network structures, spectrum allocation based communication
Summary
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have drawn tremendous attention in recent decades due to their advantages in high mobility and convenient deployment; the inherent high-dynamic characteristic [23] in UAVs brings additional challenges in the information exchange between UAVs and users, demanding a low-latency and highthroughput wireless air-to-ground (A2G) link. The communication schemes in A2G links typically employ a static link, such as aircraft communications addressing and reporting (ACARS), global system for mobile communication (GSM), and L band digital aeronautical communications systems (L-DACS) [31], with predetermined spectrum resources, which may result in a scarcity of bandwidth in cases of high-throughput communication during short-term. Several projects has been held to enhance the aeronautical link quality by introducing more flexibility in the communication. In the design phase B of the satellite communication for air traffic management (Iris) project held by the European Space Agency, an asynchronous codedivision multiple-access (A-CDMA)-based return link, i.e., A2G, and an adaptive forward link, i.e., ground-to-air (G2A) synthesized with changeable coding and modulation
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