Relying on unmanned autonomous flight control programs, unmanned aerial
vehicles (UAVs) equipped with radio communication devices have been
actively developed around the world. Given their low cost, flexible
maneuvering and unmanned operation, UAVs have been widely used in both
civilian operations and military missions, including environmental
monitoring, emergency communications, express distribution, even
military surveillance and attacks, for example. Given that a range of
standards and protocols used in terrestrial wireless networks are not
applicable to UAV networks, and that some practical constraints such as
battery power and no-fly zone hinder the maneuverability capability of a
single UAV, we need to explore advanced communication and networking
theories and methods for the sake of supporting future ultra-reliable
and low-latency applications. Typically, the full potential of UAV
network's functionalities can be tapped with the aid of the cooperation
of multiple drones relying on their ad hoc networking, in-network
communications and coordinated control. Furthermore, some swarm
intelligence models and algorithms conceived for dynamic negotiation,
path programming, formation flight and task assignment of multiple
cooperative drones are also beneficial in terms of extending UAV's
functionalities and coverage, as well as of increasing their efficiency.
We call the networking and cooperation of multiple drones as the
terminology 'flying ad hoc network (FANET)', and there indeed are
numerous new challenges to be overcome before the idespread of so-called
heterogeneous FANETs. In this book, we examine a range of technical
issues in FANETs, from physical-layer channel modeling to MAC-layer
resource allocation, while also introducing readers to UAV aided mobile
edge computing techniques.
