IEEE Communications Magazine: Wireless Communications, Networking, and Positioning with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Call for Papers

Enabled by the advances in computing, communication, and sensing as well as the miniaturization of devices, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) such as balloons, quadcopters, and gliders, have been receiving significant attention in the research community. Indeed, UAVs have become an integral component in several critical applications such as border surveillance, disaster monitoring, traffic monitoring, remote sensing, and the transportation of goods, medicine, and first-aid. More recently, new possibilities for commercial applications and public service for UAVs have begun to emerge, with the potential to dramatically change the way in which we lead our daily lives. For instance, in 2013, Amazon announced a research and development initiative focused on its next-generation Prime Air delivery service. The goal of this service is to deliver packages into customers’ hands in 30 minutes or less using small UAVs, each with a payload of several pounds. 2014 has been a pivotal year that has witnessed an unprecedented proliferation of personal drones, such as the Phantom and Inspire from DJI, AR Drone and Bebop Drone from Parrot, and IRIS Drone from 3D Robotics.

Among the many technical challenges accompanying the aforementioned applications, leveraging the use of UAVs for delivering broadband connectivity plays a central role in next generation communication systems. Facebook and Google announced in 2014 that they will use a network of drones which circle in the stratosphere over specific population centers to deliver broadband connectivity. Such solar-powered drones are capable of flying several years without refueling. UAVs have also been proposed as an effective solution for delivering broadband data rates in emergency situations through low-altitude platforms. For example, the ABSOLUTE, ANCHORS, and AVIGLE projects in Europe have been investigating the use of aerial base stations to establish opportunistic links and ad-hoc radio coverage during unexpected and temporary events. They can serve as a temporary, dynamic, and agile infrastructure for enabling broadband communications, and quickly localizing victims in case of disaster scenarios.

This proposed Feature Topic (FT) issue will gather articles from a wide range of perspectives in different industrial and research communities. The primary FT goals are to advance the understanding of the challenges faced in UAV communications, networking, and positioning over the next decade, and provide further awareness in the communications and networking communities on these challenges, thus fostering future research. Original research papers are to be solicited in topics including, but not limited to, the following themes on communications, networking, and positioning with UAVs.

• Existing and future communication architectures and technologies for small UAVs
• Delay-tolerant networking for cooperative UAV operations
• Design and evaluation of wireless UAV test beds, prototypes, and platforms
• Multi-hop and device-to-device communications with UAVs
• Interfaces and cross-platform communication for UAVs
• QoS mechanisms and performance evaluation for UAV networks
• Game-theoretic and control-theoretic mechanisms for UAV communications
• Use of civilian networks for small UAV communications
• Integrating 4G and 5G wireless technologies into UAV communications, such as millimeter wave communications, beamforming, moving networks, and machine type communications
• Use of UAVs for public safety and emergency communications, networking, and positioning
• Integration of software defined radio and cognitive radio techniques with UAVs
• Channel propagation measurements and modeling for UAV communication channels
• Backhaul design/integration and multi-flow carrier aggregation techniques for UAVs
• Security and privacy issues for UAV communications
• Energy-efficient communications considering opportunistic route/position for small UAVs
• Design of content storage and delivery methods with UAVs
• Development of novel distributed and cooperative PHY layer techniques that exploit ground user traffic demand patterns

Submissions

Articles should be tutorial in nature, with the intended audience being all members of the communications technology community. They should be written in a style comprehensible to readers outside the specialty of the article. Mathematical equations should not be used (in justified cases up to three simple equations are allowed). Articles should not exceed 4500 words (from introduction through conclusions). Figures and tables should be limited to a combined total of six. The number of references is recommended not to exceed 15. In some rare cases, more mathematical equations, figures, and tables may be allowed if well-justified. In general, however, mathematics should be avoided; instead, references to papers containing the relevant mathematics should be provided. Complete guidelines for preparation of the manuscripts are posted at http://www.comsoc.org/commag/paper-submission-guidelines. Please send a pdf (preferred) or MSWORD formatted paper via Manuscript Central (http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/commag-ieee). Register or log in, and go to Author Center. Follow the instructions there. Select “May 2016 / Wireless Communications, Networking and Positioning with UAVs” as the Feature Topic category for your submission.

Guest editors

Important Dates