A Game-Theoretic Perspective on Resource Management for Large-Scale UAV Communication Networks

As a result of rapid development in electronics and communication technology,large-scale unmanned aerial vehicles(UAVs)are harnessed for various promising applications in a coordinated manner.Although it poses numerous advantages,resource management among various domains in large-scale UAV communication networks is the key challenge to be solved urgently.Specifically,due to the inherent requirements and future development trend,distributed resource management is suitable.In this article,we investigate the resource management problem for large-scale UAV communication networks from game-theoretic perspective which are exactly coincident with the distributed and autonomous manner.By exploring the inherent features,the distinctive challenges are discussed.Then,we explore several gametheoretic models that not only combat the challenges but also have broad application prospects.We provide the basics of each game-theoretic model and discuss the potential applications for resource management in large-scale UAV communication networks.Specifically,mean-field game,graphical game,Stackelberg game,coalition game and potential game are included.After that,we propose two innovative case studies to highlight the feasibility of such novel game-theoretic models.Finally,we give some future research directions to shed light on future opportunities and applications.

Enabling Efficient Caching in High Mobility UAV Communications Network under Limited Backhaul

Due to flexible deployment,unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV)mounted aerial access points are capable of expanding the coverage capabilities of existing terrestrial base stations(TBSs).Different from TBSs,however,UAV access points(UAPs)are of high mobility in horizontal and vertical dimensions,which may deteriorate the coverage performance.Worsestill,the mobility of UAPs would as well increase the pressure of wireless backhaul.In this light,we investigate the performance of the cache-enabled UAV communications network(CUCN)in terms of network spatial throughput(ST)by analyzing the line of sight(LoS)connections and non-line of sight(NLoS)connections.It is found that the network ST is exponentially decreased with the square of UAP altitude.Furthermore,contrary to intuition,a large cache size may deteriorate the network ST when UAPs are over-deployed.The reason is that a large cache size increases the hit probability,which may increase the activation of UAPs and consequently result in complicated interference.Aiming to maximize the network ST,we optimize the cache strategy under limited backhaul.Remarkably,the results show that network ST could be substantially improved by the optimized cache strategy and the performance degeneration brought by UAP high mobility could be even eliminated especially when the UAP altitude is high.