Autonomous Airborne Wireless Networks

Sabit Ekin

School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Oklahoma State University

Stillwater, OK

USA

Syed A. Hassan

School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (SEECS) National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST)

Islamabad

Pakistan

Muhammad A. Imran

James Watt School of Engineering University of Glasgow

Glasgow

UK

Jamey D. Jacob

School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Oklahoma State University

Stillwater, OK

USA

Dushantha Nalin K. Jayakody

Department of Information Technology, School of Computer Science and Robotics, National Research Tomsk Polytechnic University

Tomsk

Russian Federation

and

Centre for Telecommunication Research, School of Engineering Sri Lanka Technological Campus

Padukka

Sri Lanka

Amit Kachroo

School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Oklahoma State University

Stillwater, OK

USA

Aziz Khuwaja

School of Engineering, Electrical and Electronic Engineering Stream University of Warwick

Coventry

UK

Paulo V. Klaine

Electronics and Nanoscale Engineering Department University of Glasgow

Glasgow

UK

Hassan Malik

Department of Computer Science Edge Hill University

Ormskirk

UK

Bacco Manlio

Institute of Information Science and Technologies (ISTI) and Institute of Science and Technologies for Energy and Sustainable Mobility, National Research Council (CNR)

Pisa

Italy

Ruggeri Massimiliano

National Research Council (CNR) Institute of Science and Technologies for Energy and Sustainable Mobility

Ferrara

Italy

Lina Mohjazi

James Watt School of Engineering University of Glasgow

Glasgow

UK

Samuel Montejo‐Sánchez

Programa Institucional de Fomento a la I+D+i, Universidad Tecnológica Metropolitana

Santiago

Chile

Hieu V. Nguyen

The University of Danang – Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

Da Nang

Vietnam

Qiang Ni

School of Computing and Communications

Lancaster University

Lancaster

UK

Phu X. Nguyen

Department of Computer Fundamentals, FPT University

Ho Chi Minh City

Vietnam

Van‐Dinh Nguyen

Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust (SnT), University of Luxembourg

Luxembourg

Oluwakayode Onireti

James Watt School of Engineering University of Glasgow

Glasgow

UK

and

Department of Electrical Engineering, Sukkur IBA University

Sukkur

Pakistan

Barsocchi Paolo

Institute of Information Science and Technologies (ISTI) and Institute of Science and Technologies for Energy and Sustainable Mobility, National Research Council (CNR)

Pisa

Italy

Haris Pervaiz

School of Computing and Communications

Lancaster University

Lancaster

UK

Olaoluwa Popoola

James Watt School of Engineering University of Glasgow

Glasgow

UK

Tharindu D. Ponnimbaduge Perera

Department of Information Technology, School of Computer Science and Robotics, National Research Tomsk Polytechnic University

Tomsk

Russian Federation

Adithya Popuri

School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Oklahoma State University

Stillwater, OK

USA

Saad Qaisar

School of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science (SEECS) National University of Sciences and Technology

Islamabad

Pakistan

and

Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering

University of Jeddah

Jeddah

Saudi Arabia

Marwa Qaraqe

Division of Information and Computing Technology, College of Science and Engineering, Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU)

Doha

Qatar

Navuday Sharma

Test Software Development Ericsson Eesti AS

Tallinn

Estonia

Richard D. Souza

Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Federal University of Santa Catarina

Florianóplis

Brazil

Muhammad K. Shehzad

School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (SEECS) National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST)

Islamabad

Pakistan

Oh‐Soon Shin

School of Electronic Engineering Soongsil University

Seoul

South Korea

Sean Thalken

Electrical and Computer Engineering Department University of the Pacific

Stockton, CA

USA

Jason To‐Tran

Electrical and Computer Engineering Department University of the Pacific

Stockton, CA

USA

Christopher Uramoto

Electrical and Computer Engineering Department University of the Pacific

Stockton, CA

USA

Muhammad Usman

Division of Information and Computing Technology, College of Science and Engineering, Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU)

Doha

Qatar

Surbhi Vishwakarma

School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Oklahoma State University

Stillwater, OK

USA

Davis Young

Electrical and Computer Engineering Department University of the Pacific

Stockton, CA

USA

Lei Zhang

Electronics and Nanoscale Engineering Department University of Glasgow

Glasgow

UK

Muhammad A. Imran, Oluwakayode Onireti, Shuja S. Ansari and Qammer H. Abbasi

James Watt School of Engineering, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK

Airborne networks (ANs) are now playing an increasingly crucial role in military, civilian, and public applications such as surveillance and monitoring, military, and rescue operations. More recently, airborne networks have also become a topic of interest in the industrial and research community of wireless communication. The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standardization has a study item devoted to facilitating the seamless integration of airborne wireless networks into future cellular networks. Airborne wireless networks enabled by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can provide cost‐effective and reliable wireless communications to support various use cases in future networks. Compared with high‐altitude platforms or conventional terrestrial communications, the provision of on‐demand communication systems with UAVs has faster deployment time and more flexibility in terms of reconfiguration. Further, UAV‐enabled propagation can also offer better communication channels due to the existence of the line‐of‐sight (LoS) links, which are of short range.

Despite the several benefits of airborne wireless networks, they suffer from some realistic constraints such as being energy constrained because of the limited battery power, safety concerns, and the strict flight zone. Hence, developing new signal processing, communication, and optimization framework for autonomous airborne wireless networks is essential. Such networks can offer high data rates and assist the traditional terrestrial networks to provide real‐time and ultrareliable sensing applications for the beyond‐5G networks. Achieving this gain requires the correct characterization of the propagation channel while considering the high mobility dynamics. Accurate channel modeling is imperative to fulfill the ever‐increasing requirements of the end user to transfer data at higher rates. The air‐to‐ground (AG) and the air‐to‐air (AA) channel propagation models for the airborne wireless network channel can be characterized by using measurement and empirical studies. Further, the key performance indicators (KPIs) of airborne wireless networks such as flight time, trajectory, data rate, energy efficiency, and latency need to be optimized for the different use cases.