Advances in the fields of networking, broadband communications and demand for high-fidelity low-latency last-mile communications have rendered as-efficient-as-possible relaying methods more necessary than ever. This paper investigates the possibility of the utilization of cellular-enabled drones as aerial base stations in next-generation cellular networks. Flying ad hoc networks (FANETs) acting as clusters of deployable relays for the on-demand extension of broadband connectivity constitute a promising scenario in the domain of next-generation high-availability communications. Matters of mobility, handover efficiency, energy availability, optimal positioning and node localization as well as respective multi-objective optimizations are discussed in detail, with their core ideas defining the structure of the work at hand. This paper examines improvements to the existing cellular network core to support novel use-cases and lower the operation costs of diverse ad hoc deployments.

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Given the observed developments of novel communication modes and the establishment of next‐generation cellular networks, mobility modelling and ad hoc routing requirements have emerged. Flying ad hoc networks are key pivots in enabling technological leaps in the domain of on‐demand communications, especially in emergency scenarios; as such, resorting to application‐ and mobility‐aware routing is a promising enabler of this emerging set of use cases. This article investigates swarm mobility modelling, and applicable routing protocols, conducting comparative analysis that leads to the introduction of the new Anchored Self‐Similar 3D Gauss‐Markov Mobility Model (ASSGM‐3D), which incorporates a novel set of spatio‐temporal statistical metrics.