Multi-UAV-Aided Networks: Aerial-Ground Cooperative Vehicular Networking Architecture

In this article, an aerial-ground cooperative vehicular networking architecture is proposed. Multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), forming an aerial subnetwork, aid the ground vehicular subnetwork through air-to-air (A2A) and air-to-ground (A2G) communications. UAVs can be dispatched to areas of interest to collect information, and transmit it to ground vehicles. Moreover, UAVs can act as intermediate relays due to their flexible mobility when network partitions happen in the ground vehicular subnetwork. With the assistance of UAVs, the twolayer cooperative networking can facilitate applications such as disaster rescue and polluted area investigation. Potential research issues and challenges in multi-UAV-aided vehicular networks are presented and discussed, which can shed light on extending the applications of vehicular networks in an extreme environment.