An Overview of Aerial Wireless Relay Networks for Emergency Communications during Large-Scale Disasters

Abstract

In emergency communication systems research, aerial wireless relay networks (AWRNs) using multicopter unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been proposed. The main issue of the AWRNs is how to minimize the delay time of packet transmissions since it is not easy to supply many multicopters to cover a wide area. In this paper, we review the flight schemes and their delay time for the AWRNs. Furthermore, the network has specific issues such as multicopters' drops due to their battery capacity depletion and inclination of moving multicopters. The inclination of multicopters affects the received power, and the communication range changes based on the inclination as well. Therefore, we clarify the effect of these issues on the delay time.