Intelligent, Efficient and Secure Operation of UAV Swarm through Adaptive Heterogeneous Communication and Edge-Cloud Collaboration

近年来的技术进步和快速增长的市场导致了无人驾驶飞行器（uav）的急剧扩散。通过利用多架无人机之间的协作，无人机群技术正成为克服单架无人机局限性的可行解决方案。NSERC CRD项目的主要目标是开发所有异构无线通信链路的集成设计和相应的协作机制，以及用于高鲁棒、高效和智能无人机群操作的边缘云数据处理技术。具体而言，本文提出的研究重点是通过所提出的异构网络（HetNets）之间的协调机制，实现基于多无人机的飞行自组网（FANET）的鲁棒性和低延迟并发指挥控制，有效运行，以支持无人机群的动态运行和高效的密集通信。为了在超密集的FANET网络中实现低延迟通信，将利用虚拟小蜂窝和优先访问的新概念。此外，将通过智能边缘云协作开发态势感知数据收集，以实现智能无人机群操作。

The recent technological advancement and rapidly growing market have led to the dramatic proliferation of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). By exploiting the collaboration among multiple UAVs, UAV swarm technology is becoming a viable solution to overcome the limitation of a single UAV. The main objective of this NSERC CRD project is to develop the integrated design of all heterogeneous wireless communication links and the corresponding collaboration mechanisms, as well as edge-cloud data processing techniques for highly robust, efficient and intelligent UAV swarm operation. Specifically, the proposed research is focused on robust and low latency concurrent command and control, effective operation of multi-UAV-based flying ad hoc networks (FANET), which are achieved through the proposed coordination mechanism among Heterogeneous Networks (HetNets) to support dynamic operation of an UAV swarm and efficient dense communications. In achieving low latency communications in ultra-dense FANET networks, new concepts of virtual small cell and prioritized access will be utilized. In addition, a situation-aware data collection through intelligent edge-cloud collaboration will be developed in achieving intelligent UAV swarm operation. The funds from the NSERC CRD program will be mainly used to support the research and development team at Western University, which includes five Highly Qualified Personnel (HQP) trainee positions on an annual basis, as well as the interaction activities with General Dynamics Land System ("GDLS"). Both theoretical aspects of the proposed adaptive concurrent low latency C2 transmission techniques, and the practical aspects on HetNets coordination and intelligent operation of FANET will be investigated by the NSERC CRD trainees. In addition, intelligent situation-aware task scheduling using machine learning will be investigated by the researchers from Western University and GDLS. This project will help the Canadian industries develop robust, efficient, and large scale machine communications and UAV swarm operation technologies based on the research results, which will directly benefit the ICT based Canadian economy.