Pricing Based Scheme for UAV-Enabled Wireless Energy Transfer

Abstract

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are expected to become one of the key enablers of the promising 5G and beyond 5G (B5G) communications. However, the deployment of the UAVs is fundamentally constrained by low energy storage capacity and limited flying time capability. These limitations are further aggravated in static UAVs (SUAVs), used as aerial nodes in cellular-connected applications such as surveillance, natural disaster, and heterogeneous cellular systems, among other high-speed wireless communications. In this paper, the idea of UAV to UAV wireless charging is envisaged. A scenario of wireless charging of an SUAV by the most cost-effective master UAV (MUAV), capable of wireless energy transfer (ET) is considered, wherein MUAVs are associated with their fixed grounded platforms. A UAV network is considered in which the most economical MUAV is dispatched to the known location of the SUAV and charge without discontinuing the mission of SUAV. Motivated by the fact that an optimized and relevant pricing scheme for futuristic charging service providers will be the critical aspect in the promising competitive market scenarios, a suitable pricing scheme is proposed; and the equilibrium in the market sharing condition using a game-theoretic approach is investigated. The Nash equilibrium (NE) for the total profit for each platform in a non-cooperative competitive environment is derived by analyzing their corresponding best prices. In this regard, a closed-form expression of the decision boundary for the SUAVs, based on area division, is identified.