Call for Papers

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly referred to as drones, have received growing attention for their versatility and applicability to a number of domains: in surveillance systems, aerial photography, traffic control, agriculture, and even for parcel delivery and future urban transportation services, e.g., aerial taxi. To allow unmanned operation, reliable and secure service delivery, UAVs need to be connected exploiting a communication infrastructure based on robust, low latency, energy efficient transmission technology. Additionally, their use is particularly beneficial for the provision of remote connectivity or to offer emergency/disaster connectivity. Drones can also be deployed to assist terrestrial communication networks (cellular radio networks) acting as flying base stations or gateways to increase coverage and/or capacity. Radio communications play a key role in both scenarios, i.e., in communication networks for drones, and in drones for communication networks. While there exists a body of literature that reports results from the analysis, integration and experimentation of existing radio communication technology, fundamental studies and optimal design are still missing. This special issue seeks contributions of fundamental nature that assess the challenge of optimal design of the physical and media access control layers, the characterization of the communication media, the study of channel capacity and  energy efficiency, the development of routing and self-organization mechanisms in both drone-assisted networks and in networks for drones. In addition, contributions related to novel radio localization techniques in support of drone navigation, as well as drone-assisted radio positioning solutions, are encouraged. 

The topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Fundamental performance analysis of drone-assisted terrestrial radio networks
• Fundamental performance analysis of radio communications for drone networks
• Channel characterization and modeling of drone radio networks
• Transmission technology and physical layer design of drone radio networks
• Resource management for network-connected drones
• Interference management for drone networks
• Energy efficient, ultra-reliable, low latency radio techniques
• Energy-aware or energy-constrained aerial network design
• Energy-aware or energy-constrained trajectory optimization in drone aided communication networks
• Path planning and coordination under energy and communication constraints in networks of drones
• Media access control of drone-assisted terrestrial radio networks
• Media access control of radio communication systems for drone networks
• Networking, routing and self-organization in drone-assisted networks and in networks for drones    
• Radio localization for drone networks
• Drone-assisted radio localization systems
• Experimental results and field-tests of aerial wireless networks

Submission Guidelines

Prospective authors should submit their manuscripts following the IEEE OJ-COMMS guidelines. Authors should submit manuscript to Manuscript Central.

Lead Guest Editor

Andrea M. Tonello, University of Klagenfurt, Austria

Guest Editors

Marco Levorato, University of California, Irvine, USA
Christos Masouros, University College London, UK
Constantinos Papadias, The American College of Greece, Greece
Yong Zeng, Southeast University, China

For inquiries regarding this Special Issue, please contact the Lead Guest Editor.