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

最近的技术进步和快速增长的市场导致了无人机(UAV)的迅猛发展。通过利用多个无人机之间的协作，无人机群技术正在成为克服单一无人机局限性的可行方案。NSERC CRD项目的主要目标是开发所有异类无线通信链路的集成设计和相应的协作机制，以及用于高度健壮、高效和智能的无人机群操作的边缘云数据处理技术。具体地说，本文的研究重点是基于多无人机的飞行自组网(FANET)的健壮性和低时延并发指挥控制以及有效运行，通过所提出的异构网间协调机制(HetNets)来支持无人机群的动态运行和高效的密集通信。在超密集FANET网络中实现低延迟通信时，将使用虚拟小小区和优先接入的新概念。此外，还将开发智能边缘云协作的态势感知数据收集，以实现智能无人机群操作。 NSERC CRD项目的资金将主要用于支持西部大学的研发团队，其中包括每年五个高素质的人员(HQP)实习生职位，以及与通用动力陆地系统(GDLS)的互动活动。NSERC CRD学员将研究提出的自适应并发低延迟C2传输技术的理论方面，以及HetNet协调和FANET智能操作的实践方面。此外，西部大学和GDLS的研究人员还将研究基于机器学习的智能情景感知任务调度。该项目将帮助加拿大工业基于研究成果开发强大、高效和大规模的机器通信和无人机群操作技术，这将直接造福于以ICT为基础的加拿大经济。

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.