Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs): A Survey on Civil Applications and Key Research Challenges

Shakhatreh, Hazim; Sawalmeh, Ahmad; Al-Fuqaha, Ala; Dou, Zuochao; Almaita, Eyad; Khalil, Issa; Othman, Noor Shamsiah; Khreishah, Abdallah; Guizani, Mohsen

doi:10.1109/access.2019.2909530

Cited by 1,536 publications

(899 citation statements)

References 294 publications

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“…The survey papers [11], [27] and [28] mainly address ad hoc networks for UAV communications by focusing on UAV-UAV communications. Prior work [29] gives a survey on UAV-aided civil applications, while the survey paper [30] discusses other applications of UAVs and some promising technologies for them. In [31], the UAV-enabled IoT services are overviewed with a particular focus on data collection, delivery, and processing, while in [32] the challenges in designing and implementing multi-UAV networks for a wide range of cyberphysical applications are reviewed.…”

Section: E Prior Work and Our Contributionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Accessing From the Sky: A Tutorial on UAV Communications for 5G and Beyond

2019

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Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have found numerous applications and are expected to bring fertile business opportunities in the next decade. Among various enabling technologies for UAVs, wireless communication is essential and has drawn significantly growing attention in recent years. Compared to the conventional terrestrial communications, UAVs' communications face new challenges due to their high altitude above the ground and great flexibility of movement in the threedimensional (3D) space. Several critical issues arise, including the line-of-sight (LoS) dominant UAV-ground channels and resultant strong aerial-terrestrial network interference, the distinct communication quality of service (QoS) requirements for UAV control messages versus payload data, the stringent constraints imposed by the size, weight and power (SWAP) limitations of UAVs, as well as the exploitation of the new design degree of freedom (DoF) brought by the highly controllable 3D UAV mobility. In this paper, we give a tutorial overview of the recent advances in UAV communications to address the above issues, with an emphasis on how to integrate UAVs into the forthcoming fifth-generation (5G) and future cellular networks. In particular, we partition our discussions into two promising research and application frameworks of UAV communications, namely UAVassisted wireless communications and cellular-connected UAVs, where UAVs serve as aerial communication platforms and users, respectively. Furthermore, we point out promising directions for future research and investigation. KeywordsUnmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), wireless communication, cellular network, channel model, antenna model, energy efficiency, air-ground interference, 3D placement and trajectory, optimization. TechnologyDescription Advantages Disadvantages Direct linkDirect point-to-point communication with ground node Simple, low cost Limited range, low data rate, vulnerable to interference, non-scalable Satellite Communication and Internet access via satellite Global coverage Costly, heavy/bulky/energyconsuming communication equipment, high latency, large signal attenuation Ad-hoc network Dynamically self-organizing and infrastructure-free network Robust and adaptable, support for high mobility Costly, low spectrum efficiency, intermittent connectivity, complex routing protocol Cellular network Enabling UAV communications by using cellular infrastructure and technologies Almost ubiquitous accessibility, cost-effective, superior performance and scalability Unavailable in remote areas, potential interference with terrestrial communications and high reliability/throughput for both air-to-air and airto-ground wireless communications in the three-dimensional (3D) space. Towards this end, four candidate communication technologies are listed and compared in Table III, including i) direct link; ii) satellite; iii) ad-hoc network; and iv) cellular network. In the following, we discuss the advantages as well as limitations of each of these technologies in detail.1) Direct Link: Due to its simpli...

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Section: E Prior Work and Our Contributionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Accessing From the Sky: A Tutorial on UAV Communications for 5G and Beyond

2019

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“…Recognizing space limitations, we focus on some potential and novel applications in this section. Some other mature or long-standing applications, such as precision agriculture [2], coastal and polar monitoring [17,26,162], disaster and emergency monitoring [6], and atmospheric monitoring [163], could be not discussed here and can be referred to papers [20,23,164,165]. In fact, other applications not discussed here are still booming and deserve attention.…”

Section: Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mini-Unmanned Aerial Vehicle-Based Remote Sensing: Techniques, applications, and prospects

Xiang

Xia

Zhang

2019

IEEE Geosci. Remote Sens. Mag.

149

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The past few decades have witnessed the great progress of unmanned aircraft vehicles (UAVs) in civilian fields, especially in photogrammetry and remote sensing. In contrast with the platforms of manned aircraft and satellite, the UAV platform holds many promising characteristics: flexibility, efficiency, highspatial/temporal resolution, low cost, easy operation, etc., which make it an effective complement to other remote-sensing platforms and a cost-effective means for remote sensing. Considering the popularity and expansion of UAV-based remote sensing in recent years, this paper provides a systematic survey on the recent advances and future prospectives of UAVs in the remote-sensing community. Specifically, the main challenges and key technologies of remote-sensing data processing based on UAVs are discussed and summarized firstly. Then, we provide an overview of the widespread applications of UAVs in remote sensing. Finally, some prospects for future work are discussed. We hope this paper will provide remotesensing researchers an overall picture of recent UAV-based remote sensing developments and help guide the further research on this topic.

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“…Consequently, UAVs have become relatively cheap and affordable. They are finding new applications in areas such as surveillance, smart policing, search and rescue missions, infrastructure inspections, package delivery, and precision agriculture [2]. Judging by the current trend in UAV applications, it is expected that UAVs will become an integral part of modern society.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Detection and Classification of UAVs Using RF Fingerprints in the Presence of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Interference

Ezuma

Erden

Anjinappa

et al. 2020

IEEE Open J. Commun. Soc.

176

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This paper investigates the problem of detection and classification of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the presence of wireless interference signals using a passive radio frequency (RF) surveillance system. The system uses a multistage detector to distinguish signals transmitted by a UAV controller from the background noise and interference signals. First, RF signals from any source are detected using a Markov models-based naïve Bayes decision mechanism. When the receiver operates at a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of 10 dB, and the threshold, which defines the states of the models, is set at a level 3.5 times the standard deviation of the preprocessed noise data, a detection accuracy of 99.8% with a false alarm rate of 2.8% is achieved. Second, signals from Wi-Fi and Bluetooth emitters, if present, are detected based on the bandwidth and modulation features of the detected RF signal. Once the input signal is identified as a UAV controller signal, it is classified using machine learning (ML) techniques. Fifteen statistical features extracted from the energy transients of the UAV controller signals are fed to neighborhood component analysis (NCA), and the three most significant features are selected. The performance of the NCA and five different ML classifiers are studied for 15 different types of UAV controllers. A classification accuracy of 98.13% is achieved by k-nearest neighbor classifier at 25 dB SNR. Classification performance is also investigated at different SNR levels and for a set of 17 UAV controllers which includes two pairs from the same UAV controller models.

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Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs): A Survey on Civil Applications and Key Research Challenges

Cited by 1,536 publications

References 294 publications

Accessing From the Sky: A Tutorial on UAV Communications for 5G and Beyond

Accessing From the Sky: A Tutorial on UAV Communications for 5G and Beyond

Mini-Unmanned Aerial Vehicle-Based Remote Sensing: Techniques, applications, and prospects

Detection and Classification of UAVs Using RF Fingerprints in the Presence of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Interference

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