The Internet of Drones (IoD) recently gained momentum due to its high adaptability to a wide variety of complex scenarios. Indeed, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) can successfully be employed in different applications, such as agriculture, search and rescue missions, surveillance systems, mission-critical services, among others, thanks to some technological and practical advantages: high mobility, capability to extend wireless coverage areas, or ability to reach places inaccessible to humans. Moreover, the employment of drones promisingly improves the performance parameters of different network architectures, e.g., reliability, connectivity, throughput, and delay. Nevertheless, the adoption of networks of drones gives rise to several issues related to the intrinsic unreliability of the wireless medium, the duration of batteries, and the high mobility degree, which may cause frequent topology changes. Also security and privacy issues need to be properly investigated. This explains the very large number of works produced in the recent literature on IoD-related topics. With respect to other surveys on IoD-related topics, the goal of the present work is to categorize the multifaceted aspects of IoD, proposing a classification approach of the IoD environment that develops along two main directions. The IoD is initially introduced according to the possible applications and reference operating scenarios. On top of that, this work discussed with its applicability with a dedicated focus on the economical/social implications that the adoption of drones at scale may have. At a macroscopic level, it follows the structure of the Internet protocol stack, starting from the physical layer and extending to the upper layers, without neglecting cross-layer and optimization approaches. At a finer level, all the most relevant works belonging to each layer of the stack are further classified, according to the different issues that propose a peculiar challenges for each layer, and highlighting the most relevant differences with the other surveys present in literature. To provide a deeper insight, the present work embraces many facets of the IoD, with a thorough examination of privacy and security considerations. Finally, a discussion on the main research challenges and possible future directions is carried out, focusing on both open issues and the most promising technologies that deserve to be further developed in the IoD field.

An extensive survey on the Internet of Drones

Until now, every evolution of communication standard was driven by the need for providing
high-speed connectivity to the end-user. However, 5G marks a radical shift from this focus as 5G and
beyond networks are being designed to be future-proof by catering to diverse requirements of several use
cases. These requirements include Ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communications, Massive Machine-Type
Communications and Enhanced Mobile Broadband. To realize such features in 5G and beyond, there is a
need to rethink how current cellular networks are deployed because designing new radio access technologies
and utilizing the new spectrum are not enough. Several technologies, such as software-defined networking,
network function virtualization, machine learning and cloud computing, are being integrated into the 5G
networks to fulfil the need for diverse requirements. These technologies, however, give rise to several
challenges associated with decentralization, transparency, interoperability, privacy and security. To address
these issues, Blockchain has emerged as a potential solution due to its capabilities such as transparency, data
encryption, auditability, immutability and distributed architecture. In this paper, we review the state-of-art
application of Blockchain in 5G network and explore how it can facilitate enabling technologies of 5G and
beyond to enable various services at the front-haul, edge and the core. Based on the review, we present a
taxonomy of Blockchain application in 5G networks and discuss several issues that can be solved using
Blockchain integration. We then present various field-trials and Proof of concept that are using Blockchain
to address the challenges faced in the current 5G deployment. Finally, we discuss various challenges that
need to be addressed to realize the full potential of Blockchain in beyond 5G networks. The survey presents
a broad range of ideas related to Blockchain integration in 5G and beyond networks that address issues
such as interoperability, security, mobility, resource allocation, resource sharing and management, energy
efficiency and other desirable features.

/pdf/a-review-on-application-of-blockchain-in-5g-and-beyond-2f632delnr.pdf

A review on application of blockchain in 5G and beyond networks: taxonomy, field-trials, challenges and opportunities

Sensor nodes in a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) can be dispersed over a remote sensing area (e.g., the regions that are hardly accessed by human beings). In such kinds of networks, datacollectionbecomesoneofthemajorissues. Getting connected to each sensor node and retrieving the information in time introduces new challenges. Mobile sink usage-especially Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)-is the most convenient approach to covering the area and accessing each sensor node in such a large-scale WSN. However, the operation of the UAV depends on some parameters, such as endurance time, altitude, speed, radio type in use, and the path. In this paper, we explore various UAV mobility patterns that follow different paths to sweep the operation area in order to seek the best area coverage with the maximum number of covered nodes in the least amount of time needed by the mobile sink. We also introduce a new metric to formulate the tradeoff between maximizing the covered nodes and minimizing the operation time when choosing the appropriate mobility pattern. A realistic simulation environment is used in order to compare and evaluate the performance of the system. We present the performance results for the explored UAV mobility patterns. The results are very useful to present the tradeoff between maximizing the covered nodes and minimizing the operation time to choose the appropriate mobility pattern.

Analyzing the Effects of UAV Mobility Patterns on Data Collection in Wireless Sensor Networks.

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have been broadly used in various areas of commercial applications as well as public services. Furthermore, emerging unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been combined into many existing technologies. By employing UAVs in WSNs, sensor data can be effectively collected and the network lifetime is prolonged with reduced energy consumption. In the UAV-aided WSNs (UWSNs), medium access control (MAC) is very important because it affects not only the system performance but also the energy efficiency in battery-powered sensor nodes. It should be noted that the tiny sensor nodes are typically disposable and their batteries are not replaceable in most applications. Thus, a number of MAC protocols with different objectives have been designed for UWSNs. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there is no survey on MAC protocols for UWSNs in the literature. In this paper, the various MAC protocols for UWSNs are extensively investigated and qualitatively compared with each other in terms of major features, characteristics, and pros and cons. Moreover, open issues and challenges in the design of the MAC protocols for the UWSNs are discussed.

/pdf/medium-access-control-protocols-for-unmanned-aerial-vehicle-1mcln8gs2y.pdf

Medium Access Control Protocols for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle-Aided Wireless Sensor Networks: A Survey

In this paper, a novel unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-enabled full duplex decode-and-forward (DF) technique is used in mobile relaying system. Compared with conventional static relaying, mobile relaying provides more degree of freedom for experiencing better channel conditions and further improving the system reliable performance. The source and relay transmit power as well as relay trajectory are jointly optimized for sum outage probability minimization in mobile relaying system. Due to the non-convex nature of the original problem, block coordinate decent optimization techniques are employed to decompose it into two sub-problems, which leads to an efficient iterative algorithm. Specifically, for the pre-determined relay trajectory, the optimal transmit power of source and relay are obtained by solving Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) conditions. For the given source/relay power allocation, the optimal UAV trajectory is obtained by solving dual problem. Based on the two steps, an iterative algorithm is proposed to jointly optimize source/relay power allocation and UAV trajectory alternately. Numerical results show the performance gain of our proposed scheme.

Outage probability minimization for low-altitude UAV-enabled full-duplex mobile relaying systems

Secure Caching Scheme by Using Blockchain for Information-Centric Network-Based Wireless Sensor Networks

This paper addresses an efficient data collection scheme based on the cooperative communications by using the UAV for wireless sensor network (WSN). Specifically, we propose a novel system architecture and MAC protocol, which is included how to select the target cooperative sensor node and which sensing data should be retransmitted by using the decided cooperative sensor node. In our evaluations, we reveal the improvement of probability that the sensing data are exactly collected by using the exhaustive Monte Carlo computer simulations. The numerical results demonstrate that our scheme can effectively work when the number of sensor nodes, N, is satisfied with 1, 000 ≤ N ≤ 5, 000 regions, and our scheme can improve by 16.3 %, 46.8 %, 49.8 %, 74.2 % and 92.6 % in case of N = 1,000, 2,000, 3,000, 4,000 and 5,000, respectively.

Cooperative sensing data collecting framework by using unmanned aircraft vehicle in wireless sensor network

This paper proposes a caching data protection scheme that uses blockchains and hashchains for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-assisted information-centric wireless sensor networks in smart-city applications as a case study. In the consensus scheme of the proposed scheme, a new block is verified according to voting by validators without exhaustive mining computations. Therefore, the proposed scheme is suitable for resourcelimited wireless and mobile devices. With the scheme, UAVs work as validators as well as data collectors, and the overhead of transaction-fee management can be eliminated. Validators are responsible for block verifications; thus, the proposed scheme maintains the consensus by detecting and removing validators that vote incorrectly by using hashchain-based signatures. Simulations were conducted to evaluate the proposed scheme, and the results revealed the requirements for implementing it in smart-city applications and its robustness, feasibility, and effectiveness.

https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jsp/26/1/26_21/_pdf

Secure Caching Scheme Using Blockchains for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle-Assisted Information-Centric Wireless Sensor Networks

This paper addresses a large-scale river monitoring system, an essential component of smart cities and disaster area networks. We investigate a velocity and direction measurement method for river surface. To measure the velocity vectors from the pictures taken by a camera located on the riverbank, the proposed method uses a visual particle image velocimetry. In this paper, we present the overall blueprint of our study and a preliminary evaluation of the field experiment conducted in the Onga River in Fukuoka, Japan.

Prototype Development of River Velocimetry using Visual Particle Image Velocimetry for Smart Cities and Disaster Area Networks

This paper addresses a novel cooperative data collection scheme in wireless sensor networks using unmanned aerial vehicles based on low-power wide-area aspect. The proposed scheme can overcome the traditional technical issues, such as collisions, poor-radio propagations, and interference reductions, to introduce a novel successive interference cancellation-based receiver-side cooperation mechanism. In the numerical results, we demonstrate that the proposed scheme can improve significant frame-reception probability regarding cooperative-reception gain and interference-reduction gain using computer simulation.

Shintaro Mori

Papers

Secure Caching Scheme by Using Blockchain for Information-Centric Network-Based Wireless Sensor Networks

Cooperative sensing data collecting framework by using unmanned aircraft vehicle in wireless sensor network

Secure Caching Scheme Using Blockchains for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle-Assisted Information-Centric Wireless Sensor Networks

Prototype Development of River Velocimetry using Visual Particle Image Velocimetry for Smart Cities and Disaster Area Networks

Receiver-side Cooperation Scheme with Interference Reduction for Wireless Sensor Networks