The role of unmanned aerial vehicles in military communications: application scenarios, current trends, and beyond

The role of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is becoming increasingly important for military conflicts. UAVs are more and more strongly considered as a force multiplier that could play a decisive role for the final outcome of an ambiguous battle. While the role of UAVs for Identification/Surveillance/Reconnaissance missions has been well established within many modern armies, their contribution to the upgrade or the restoration of military communications is still vague. In the current paper we review the current situation in military communications utilizing UAV platforms, and we also explore its future trends and capabilities taking into consideration the parallel developments in the civil UAV manufacturing sector involving UAV swarms and fifth-generation networks. Furthermore, a set of realistic combat scenarios involving the utilization of UAVs as a multipurpose communication node is presented and discussed, highlighting its critical role as a catalyst for the successful accomplishment of diverse military missions.