Energy-Efficient Resource Allocation in Aerial Base Stations

Drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles, can be used as air base stations (UAV-BSs) for telecommunications. They prove useful in situations where the network is overloaded or unavailable due to natural disasters or maintenance work. UAV-BSs grant access to user/IoTs sensors on the ground, but their electromagnetic signals may suffer losses because of their dynamic capacity to provide access at different altitudes. These losses lead to transmission impairments, such as attenuation, fading, and distortion. To overcome these issues and improve signal quality, the UAV-BS position must be optimized. However, finding the optimal placement is a challenge, and a wide range of strategies employing different approaches have been adopted. In this study, we proposed a 3D positioning strategy for UAV-BSs that serves the maximum number of users with the smallest number of UAV-BSs. Results showed that the proposed heuristic could find the best position and altitude for the UAV-BSs, provide network access for mobile user/IoTs (Internet of things) sensors, maximize the number of devices connected to the UAV-BSs, and guarantee a minimum throughput for users. The proposed heuristic not only performs well in terms of coverage and performance, but is also more energy-efficient than other algorithms found in the literature.