A Review on Air-Ground Coordination in Mobile Edge Computing: Key Technologies, Applications and Future Directions

In recent years, Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) has received extensive research attention due to its characteristics, such as real-time data processing and flexible application deployment. However, traditional MEC server deployment relies on the terrestrial Base Stations (BSs), resulting in high deployment costs and limited coverage range. In response to these challenges, air-ground coordination has emerged, which effectively combines the advantages of edge computing and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), providing an effective architecture for edge intelligence. By utilizing the flexibility of UAVs and empowering them into edge nodes with computing resources, the coverage range of MEC can be expanded, thereby reducing the reliance of edge devices on terrestrial BSs. Furthermore, leveraging terrestrial BSs as supplements to the computing power compensates for relatively limited computational capabilities of UAVs. Although extensive studies have been conducted on air-ground coordination, there are few related summaries of application technologies and prospects. Thus, the key technologies of air-ground coordination and applications are comprehensively reviewed in this paper. Finally, to provide guidance for interested researchers, the development trends and potential applications of air-ground coordination are explored.