Survey on Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Networks for Civil Applications: A Communications Viewpoint

TLDR

UAV swarms are becoming feasible due to cost‑efficient small aircraft and growing civil demand, prompting heavy investment from governments and industry and underscoring the need to understand UAV network characteristics for safe air‑traffic integration. This survey examines the characteristics and requirements of UAV networks for civil applications from 2000‑2015 to guide reliable and coordinated aerial traffic. The authors quantify QoS needs, mission parameters, data requirements, and minimum data transmission, and analyze connectivity, adaptability, safety, privacy, security, and scalability, while reporting experimental results and evaluating existing communication technologies. Experimental results from multiple projects indicate that current communication technologies can support reliable aerial networking, though suitability varies across application scenarios.

Abstract

The days where swarms of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) will occupy our skies are fast approaching due to the introduction of cost-efficient and reliable small aerial vehicles and the increasing demand for use of such vehicles in a plethora of civil applications. Governments and industry alike have been heavily investing in the development of UAVs. As such it is important to understand the characteristics of networks with UAVs to enable the incorporation of multiple, coordinated aerial vehicles into the air traffic in a reliable and safe manner. To this end, this survey reports the characteristics and requirements of UAV networks for envisioned civil applications over the period 2000-2015 from a communications and networking viewpoint. We survey and quantify quality-of-service requirements, network-relevant mission parameters, data requirements, and the minimum data to be transmitted over the network. Furthermore, we elaborate on general networking related requirements such as connectivity, adaptability, safety, privacy, security, and scalability. We also report experimental results from many projects and investigate the suitability of existing communication technologies for supporting reliable aerial networking.