Average Secrecy Capacity of the Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface-Assisted Integrated Satellite Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Relay Networks

Integrated satellite unmanned aerial vehicle relay networks(ISUAVRNs)have become a prominent topic in recent years.This paper investigates the average secrecy capacity(ASC)for reconfigurable intelligent surface(RIS)-enabled ISUAVRNs.Especially,an eve is considered to intercept the legitimate information from the considered secrecy system.Besides,we get detailed expressions for the ASC of the regarded secrecy system with the aid of the reconfigurable intelligent.Furthermore,to gain insightful results of the major parameters on the ASC in high signalto-noise ratio regime,the approximate investigations are further gotten,which give an efficient method to value the secrecy analysis.At last,some representative computer results are obtained to prove the theoretical findings.

A two-stage optimization method for unmanned aerial vehicle inspection of an oil and gas pipeline network

Oil and gas pipeline networks are a key link in the coordinated development of oil and gas both upstream and downstream.To improve the reliability and safety of the oil and gas pipeline network, inspections are implemented to minimize the risk of leakage, spill and theft, as well as documenting actual incidents. In recent years, unmanned aerial vehicles have been recognized as a promising option for inspection due to their high efficiency. However, the integrated optimization of unmanned aerial vehicle inspection for oil and gas pipeline networks, including physical feasibility, the performance of mission, cooperation, real-time implementation and three-dimensional(3-D) space, is a strategic problem due to its large-scale,complexity as well as the need for efficiency. In this work, a novel mixed-integer nonlinear programming model is proposed that takes into account the constraints of the mission scenario and the safety performance of unmanned aerial vehicles. To minimize the total length of the inspection path, the model is solved by a two-stage solution method. Finally, a virtual pipeline network and a practical pipeline network are set as two examples to demonstrate the performance of the optimization schemes. Moreover, compared with the traditional genetic algorithm and simulated annealing algorithm, the self-adaptive genetic simulated annealing algorithm proposed in this paper provides strong stability.

Outage Performance of Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access Based Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Satellite Networks

With rapid development of unmanned aerial vehicles(UAVs), more and more UAVs access satellite networks for data transmission. To improve the spectral efficiency, non-orthogonal multiple access(NOMA) is adopted to integrate UAVs into the satellite network, where multiple satellites cooperatively serve the UAVs and mobile terminal using the Ku-band and above. Taking into account the rain fading and the fading correlation, the outage performance is first analytically obtained for fixed power allocation and then efficiently calculated by the proposed power allocation algorithm to guarantee the user fairness. Simulation results verify the outage performance analysis and show the performance improvement of the proposed power allocation scheme.

Circular Formation Flight Control for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles With Directed Network and External Disturbance

This paper proposes a new distributed formation flight protocol for unmanned aerial vehicles(UAVs)to perform coordinated circular tracking around a set of circles on a target sphere.Different from the previous results limited in bidirectional networks and disturbance-free motions,this paper handles the circular formation flight control problem with both directed network and spatiotemporal disturbance with the knowledge of its upper bound.Distinguishing from the design of a common Lyapunov fiunction for bidirectional cases,we separately design the control for the circular tracking subsystem and the formation keeping subsystem with the circular tracking error as input.Then the whole control system is regarded as a cascade connection of these two subsystems,which is proved to be stable by input-tostate stability(ISS)theory.For the purpose of encountering the external disturbance,the backstepping technology is introduced to design the control inputs of each UAV pointing to North and Down along the special sphere(say,the circular tracking control algorithm)with the help of the switching function.Meanwhile,the distributed linear consensus protocol integrated with anther switching anti-interference item is developed to construct the control input of each UAV pointing to east along the special sphere(say,the formation keeping control law)for formation keeping.The validity of the proposed control law is proved both in the rigorous theory and through numerical simulations.

Neural Network Based Feedback Linearization Control of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

This paper presents a flight control design for an unmanned aerial vehicle （UAV） using a nonlinear autoregressive moving average （NARMA-L2） neural network based feedback linearization and output redefinition technique. The UAV investigated is non- minimum phase. The output redefinition technique is used in such a way that the resulting system to be inverted is a minimum phase system. The NARMA-L2 neural network is trained off-line for forward dynamics of the UAV model with redefined output and is then inverted to force the real output to approximately track a command input. Simulation results show that the proposed approaches have good performance.

Secrecy Outage Probability for Two-Way Integrated Satellite Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Relay Networks with Hardware Impairments

In this paper,we investigate the secrecy outage performance for the two-way integrated satellite unmanned aerial vehicle relay networks with hardware impairments.Particularly,the closed-form expression for the secrecy outage probability is obtained.Moreover,to get more information on the secrecy outage probability in a high signalto-noise regime,the asymptotic analysis along with the secrecy diversity order and secrecy coding gain for the secrecy outage probability are also further obtained,which presents a fast method to evaluate the impact of system parameters and hardware impairments on the considered network.Finally,Monte Carlo simulation results are provided to show the efficiency of the theoretical analysis.

Tree species classification using deep learning and RGB optical images obtained by an unmanned aerial vehicle

The diversity of tree species and the complexity of land use in cities create challenging issues for tree species classification.The combination of deep learning methods and RGB optical images obtained by unmanned aerial vehicles(UAVs) provides a new research direction for urban tree species classification.We proposed an RGB optical image dataset with 10 urban tree species,termed TCC10,which is a benchmark for tree canopy classification(TCC).TCC10 dataset contains two types of data:tree canopy images with simple backgrounds and those with complex backgrounds.The objective was to examine the possibility of using deep learning methods(AlexNet,VGG-16,and ResNet-50) for individual tree species classification.The results of convolutional neural networks(CNNs) were compared with those of K-nearest neighbor(KNN) and BP neural network.Our results demonstrated:(1) ResNet-50 achieved an overall accuracy(OA) of 92.6% and a kappa coefficient of 0.91 for tree species classification on TCC10 and outperformed AlexNet and VGG-16.(2) The classification accuracy of KNN and BP neural network was less than70%,while the accuracy of CNNs was relatively higher.(3)The classification accuracy of tree canopy images with complex backgrounds was lower than that for images with simple backgrounds.For the deciduous tree species in TCC10,the classification accuracy of ResNet-50 was higher in summer than that in autumn.Therefore,the deep learning is effective for urban tree species classification using RGB optical images.

Placement of unmanned aerial vehicles as communication relays in two-tiered multi-agent system:clustering based methods

The network performance and the unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV)number are important objectives when UAVs are placed as communication relays to enhance the multi-agent information exchange.The problem is a non-deterministic polynomial hard(NP-hard)multi-objective optimization problem,instead of generating a Pareto solution,this work focuses on considering both objectives at the same level so as to achieve a balanced solution between them.Based on the property that agents connected to the same UAV are a cluster,two clustering-based algorithms,M-K-means(MKM)and modified fast search and find density of peaks(MFSFDP)methods,are first proposed.Since the former algorithm requires too much computational time and the latter one requires too many relays,an algorithm for the balanced network performance and relay number(BPN)is proposed by discretizing the area to avoid missing the optimal relay positions and defining a new local density function to reflect the network performance metric.Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithms are feasible and effective.Comparisons between these algorithms show that the BPN algorithm uses fewer relay UAVs than the MFSFDP and classic set-covering based algorithm,and its computational time is far less than the MKM algorithm.

Intelligent Greedy Perimeter Stateless Routing Scheme for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

The dynamic behavior,rapid mobility,abrupt changes in network topology,and numerous other flying constraints in unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV)networks make the design of a routing protocol a challenging task.The data routing for communication between UAVs faces numerous challenges,such as low link quality,data loss,and routing path failure.This work proposes greedy perimeter stateless routing(GPSR)based design and implementation of a new adaptive communication routing protocol technique for UAVs,allowing multiple UAVs to communicate more effectively with each other in a group.Close imitation of the real environment is accomplished by considering UAVs’three-dimensional(3D)mobility in the simulations.The performance of the proposed intelligent greedy perimeter stateless routing(IGPSR)scheme has been evaluated based on end-to-end(E2E)delay,network throughput,and data loss ratio.The adapted scheme displayed on average 40%better results.The scenario has been implemented holistically on the network simulator software NS-3.

UAV-assisted data collection for wireless sensor networks with dynamic working modes

Wireless Sensor Network(WSN)is a cornerstone of Internet of Things(IoT)and has rich application scenarios.In this work,we consider a heterogeneous WSN whose sensor nodes have a diversity in their Residual Energy(RE).In this work,to protect the sensor nodes with low RE,we investigate dynamic working modes for sensor nodes which are determined by their RE and an introduced energy threshold.Besides,we employ an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle(UAV)to collect the stored data from the heterogeneous WSN.We aim to jointly optimize the cluster head selection,energy threshold and sensor nodes’working mode to minimize the weighted sum of energy con-sumption from the WSN and UAV,subject to the data collection rate constraint.To this end,we propose an efficient search method to search for an optimal energy threshold,and develop a penalty-based successive convex approximation algorithm to select the cluster heads.Then we present a low-complexity iterative approach to solve the joint optimization problem and discuss the implementation procedure.Numerical results justify that our proposed approach is able to reduce the energy consumption of the sensor nodes with low RE significantly and also saves energy for the whole WSN.

Actor-Critic-Based UAV-Assisted Data Collection in the Wireless Sensor Network

Wireless Sensor Network(WSN)is widely utilized in large-scale distributed unmanned detection scenarios due to its low cost and flexible installation.However,WSN data collection encounters challenges in scenarios lacking communication infrastructure.Unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV)offers a novel solution for WSN data collection,leveraging their high mobility.In this paper,we present an efficient UAV-assisted data collection algorithm aimed at minimizing the overall power consumption of the WSN.Firstly,a two-layer UAV-assisted data collection model is introduced,including the ground and aerial layers.The ground layer senses the environmental data by the cluster members(CMs),and the CMs transmit the data to the cluster heads(CHs),which forward the collected data to the UAVs.The aerial network layer consists of multiple UAVs that collect,store,and forward data from the CHs to the data center for analysis.Secondly,an improved clustering algorithm based on K-Means++is proposed to optimize the number and locations of CHs.Moreover,an Actor-Critic based algorithm is introduced to optimize the UAV deployment and the association with CHs.Finally,simulation results verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms.

Graph neural network-based scheduling for multi-UAV-enabled communications in D2D networks

In this paper,we jointly design the power control and position dispatch for Multi-Unmanned Aerial Vehicle(UAV)-enabled communication in Device-to-Device(D2D)networks.Our objective is to maximize the total transmission rate of Downlink Users(DUs).Meanwhile,the Quality of Service(QoS)of all D2D users must be satisfied.We comprehensively considered the interference among D2D communications and downlink transmissions.The original problem is strongly non-convex,which requires high computational complexity for traditional optimization methods.And to make matters worse,the results are not necessarily globally optimal.In this paper,we propose a novel Graph Neural Networks(GNN)based approach that can map the considered system into a specific graph structure and achieve the optimal solution in a low complexity manner.Particularly,we first construct a GNN-based model for the proposed network,in which the transmission links and interference links are formulated as vertexes and edges,respectively.Then,by taking the channel state information and the coordinates of ground users as the inputs,as well as the location of UAVs and the transmission power of all transmitters as outputs,we obtain the mapping from inputs to outputs through training the parameters of GNN.Simulation results verified that the way to maximize the total transmission rate of DUs can be extracted effectively via the training on samples.Moreover,it also shows that the performance of proposed GNN-based method is better than that of traditional means.

Integrated Clustering and Routing Design and Triangle Path Optimization for UAV-Assisted Wireless Sensor Networks

With the development of the Internet of Things(IoT),it requires better performance from wireless sensor networks(WSNs),such as larger coverage,longer lifetime,and lower latency.However,a large amount of data generated from monitoring and long-distance transmission places a heavy burden on sensor nodes with the limited battery power.For this,we investigate an unmanned aerial vehicles assisted mobile wireless sensor network(UAV-assisted WSN)to prolong the network lifetime in this paper.Specifically,we use UAVs to assist the WSN in collecting data.In the current UAV-assisted WSN,the clustering and routing schemes are determined sequentially.However,such a separate consideration might not maximize the lifetime of the whole WSN due to the mutual coupling of clustering and routing.To efficiently prolong the lifetime of the WSN,we propose an integrated clustering and routing scheme that jointly optimizes the clustering and routing together.In the whole network space,it is intractable to efficiently obtain the optimal integrated clustering and routing scheme.Therefore,we propose the Monte-Las search strategy based on Monte Carlo and Las Vegas ideas,which can generate the chain matrix to guide the algorithm to find the solution faster.Unnecessary point-to-point collection leads to long collection paths,so a triangle optimization strategy is then proposed that finds a compromise path to shorten the collection path based on the geometric distribution and energy of sensor nodes.To avoid the coverage hole caused by the death of sensor nodes,the deployment of mobile sensor nodes and the preventive mechanism design are indispensable.An emergency data transmission mechanism is further proposed to reduce the latency of collecting the latency-sensitive data due to the absence of UAVs.Compared with the existing schemes,the proposed scheme can prolong the lifetime of the UAVassisted WSN at least by 360%,and shorten the collection path of UAVs by 56.24%.

Real-time UAV path planning based on LSTM network

To address the shortcomings of single-step decision making in the existing deep reinforcement learning based unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV)real-time path planning problem,a real-time UAV path planning algorithm based on long shortterm memory(RPP-LSTM)network is proposed,which combines the memory characteristics of recurrent neural network(RNN)and the deep reinforcement learning algorithm.LSTM networks are used in this algorithm as Q-value networks for the deep Q network(DQN)algorithm,which makes the decision of the Q-value network has some memory.Thanks to LSTM network,the Q-value network can use the previous environmental information and action information which effectively avoids the problem of single-step decision considering only the current environment.Besides,the algorithm proposes a hierarchical reward and punishment function for the specific problem of UAV real-time path planning,so that the UAV can more reasonably perform path planning.Simulation verification shows that compared with the traditional feed-forward neural network(FNN)based UAV autonomous path planning algorithm,the RPP-LSTM proposed in this paper can adapt to more complex environments and has significantly improved robustness and accuracy when performing UAV real-time path planning.

Sensing and Communication Integrated Fast Neighbor Discovery for UAV Networks

In unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV)networks,the high mobility of nodes leads to frequent changes in network topology,which brings challenges to the neighbor discovery(ND)for UAV networks.Integrated sensing and communication(ISAC),as an emerging technology in 6G mobile networks,has shown great potential in improving communication performance with the assistance of sensing information.ISAC obtains the prior information about node distribution,reducing the ND time.However,the prior information obtained through ISAC may be imperfect.Hence,an ND algorithm based on reinforcement learning is proposed.The learning automaton(LA)is applied to interact with the environment and continuously adjust the probability of selecting beams to accelerate the convergence speed of ND algorithms.Besides,an efficient ND algorithm in the neighbor maintenance phase is designed,which applies the Kalman filter to predict node movement.Simulation results show that the LA-based ND algorithm reduces the ND time by up to 32%compared with the Scan-Based Algorithm(SBA),which proves the efficiency of the proposed ND algorithms.

一种低开销自适应SD-UANET流表下发机制

软件定义无人机自组网场景下,相较于软件定义有线网络,其网内节点数量更多导致各节点流表数量爆发式增长。针对原OpenFlow v1.5协议中主动下发流表的机制与flow_mod消息结构对于无线环境与多跳流表下发的不兼容,导致无人机自组网场景下流表下发开销过大以及收包率降低。对于无人机自组网场景下OpenFlow v1.5协议中的问题,通过组播切包组包去尾策略与流表源、目的地址自适应压缩策略,减少了头部开销,提升了无线资源利用率,并减少了冗余的流表项部分,在保证功能不缩减的情况下较显著地减少了开销。OPENET 14.5仿真验证显示,此机制大幅减少了网络控制开销,提高了网络吞吐量,降低了端到端时延与丢包率。

Robustness evaluation method for unmanned aerial vehicle swarms based on complex network theory

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle(UAV)swarms have been foreseen to play an important role in military applications in the future,wherein they will be frequently subjected to different disturbances and destructions such as attacks and equipment faults.Therefore,a sophisticated robustness evaluation mechanism is of considerable importance for the reliable functioning of the UAV swarms.However,their complex characteristics and irregular dynamic evolution make them extremely challenging and uncertain to evaluate the robustness of such a system.In this paper,a complex network theory-based robustness evaluation method for a UAV swarming system is proposed.This method takes into account the dynamic evolution of UAV swarms,including dynamic reconfiguration and information correlation.The paper analyzes and models the aforementioned dynamic evolution and establishes a comprehensive robustness metric and two evaluation strategies.The robustness evaluation method and algorithms considering dynamic reconfiguration and information correlation are developed.Finally,the validity of the proposed method is verified by conducting a case study analysis.The results can further provide some guidance and reference for the robust design,mission planning and decision-making of UAV swarms.

Trophallaxis network control approach to formation flight of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles

A novel network control method based on trophaUaxis mechanism is applied to the formation flight problem for multiple un- manned aerial vehicles （UAVs）. Firstly, the multiple UAVs formation flight system based on trophallaxis network control is given. Then, the model of leader-follower formation flight with a virtual leader based on trophallaxis network control is pre- sented, and the influence of time delays on the network performance is analyzed. A particle swarm optimization （PSO）-based formation controller is proposed for solving the leader-follower formation flight system. The proposed method is applied to five UAVs for achieving a ＇V＇ formation, and a series of experimental results show its feasibility and validity. The proposed control algorithm is also a promising control strategy for formation flight of multiple unmanned underwater vehicles （UUVs）, unmanned ground vehicles （UGVs）, missiles and satellites.

Cultivated land information extraction in UAV imagery based on deep convolutional neural network and transfer learning

The development of precision agriculture demands high accuracy and efficiency of cultivated land information extraction. As a new means of monitoring the ground in recent years, unmanned aerial vehicle （UAV） low-height remote sensing technique, which is flexible, efficient with low cost and with high resolution, is widely applied to investing various resources. Based on this, a novel extraction method for cultivated land information based on Deep Convolutional Neural Network and Transfer Learning （DTCLE） was proposed. First, linear features （roads and ridges etc.） were excluded based on Deep Convolutional Neural Network （DCNN）. Next, feature extraction method learned from DCNN was used to cultivated land information extraction by introducing transfer learning mechanism. Last, cultivated land information extraction results were completed by the DTCLE and eCognifion for cultivated land information extraction （ECLE）. The location of the Pengzhou County and Guanghan County, Sichuan Province were selected for the experimental purpose. The experimental results showed that the overall precision for the experimental image 1, 2 and 3 （of extracting cultivated land） with the DTCLE method was 91.7%, 88.1% and 88.2% respectively, and the overall precision of ECLE is 9o.7%, 90.5% and 87.0%, respectively. Accuracy of DTCLE was equivalent to that of ECLE, and also outperformed ECLE in terms of integrity and continuity.

Unmanned aerial vehicle swarm mission reliability modeling and evaluation method oriented to systematic and networked mission

With the development of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle(UAV) system autonomy, network communication technology and group intelligence theory, mission execution in the form of a UAV swarm will be an important realization of future applications. Traditional single-UAV mission reliability modeling methods have been unable to meet the requirements of UAV swarm mission reliability modeling. Therefore, the UAV swarm mission reliability modeling and evaluation method is proposed. First, aimed at the interdependence among the multiple layers, a multi-layer network model of a UAV swarm is established. At the same time, based on the system having the following characteristics—using a mission chain to complete the mission and applying the connectivity of the mission network—the mission network model of a UAV swarm is established. Second, vulnerability and connectivity are selected as two indicators to reflect the reliability of the mission, and aimed at random attack and deliberate attack, vulnerability and connectivity evaluation methods are proposed. Finally, the validity and accuracy of the constructed model are verified through simulations,and the model and selected indicators can meet the reliability requirements of the UAV swarm mission. In this way, this study provides quantitative reference for UAV-swarm-related decisionmaking work and supports the development of UAV-swarm-related work.