3D Deployment of multi-UAV network in Disaster Zones to achieve Coverage and Connectivity

In disaster situations, effective communication faces challenges due to potential damage of terrestrial base stations, hindering emergency services, and search and rescue missions. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) offer a promising solution, providing anytime, anywhere service by quickly forming temporary networks as base stations for wireless communication. For these UAVs to play a pivotal role in critical missions, strategic placement becomes paramount, considering factors such as user positions, communication range, path loss, transmission power, and coverage. Streamlining deployment efficiency becomes inseparable from the necessity of attaining optimal coverage using a minimal number of UAVs, a crucial consideration given the potential resource constraints in disaster scenarios. Furthermore, UAV ad-hoc formations provide a flexible and robust solution for establishing communication networks in disaster-stricken areas, offering expanded coverage, redundancy, adaptability, and scalability to meet the dynamic challenges posed by such situations. This study delves into an optimal deployment strategy for disaster missions, emphasizing the use of a minimum number of UAVs to provide wireless services to victims and responders. A mathematical model is derived in this study that considers feasible points, calculating the optimal number of UAVs and determining their 3D coordinates while adhering to specified constraints. The optimization problem is formulated as a Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (MILP), concurrently evaluating the number of users served by each UAV. Compared to existing research, this study is specific to the disaster environment, and strikes a good balance between optimal deployment and user coverage by ensuring ad-hoc connectivity.