Aerial-Ground Cooperative Vehicular Networks for Emergency Integrated Localization and Communication

Abstract

The destruction of terrestrial infrastructure following natural disasters poses a significant challenge for emergency rescue and recovery operations. In this article, we propose an innovative solution called the aerial-ground cooperative vehicular network (AGCVN) to address this issue. The AGCVN aims to provide a reliable, flexible, and resilient integrated localization and communication (ILAC) service in disaster scenarios by leveraging the cooperation among unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and terrestrial emergency vehicles (TEVs). However, the complex and resource-limited disaster environment makes it difficult to efficiently utilize resources for ILAC with low complexity. Toward this end, we first investigate the framework of the AGCVN, which includes the basic architecture, ILAC mechanism, related applications, and the challenges faced by AGCVN in utilizing ILAC. Additionally, considering integrated signal design, network topology optimization, and joint resource adaptation as case studies, we explore resource management schemes for emergency ILAC in AGCVN to achieve multi-level unification of dual functionalities. Finally, we present simulation results that demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed schemes.