Wireless communications with unmanned aerial vehicles: opportunities and challenges

Wireless communication systems that include unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) promise to provide cost-effective wireless connectivity for devices without infrastructure coverage. Compared to terrestrial communications or those based on high-altitude platforms (HAPs), on-demand wireless systems with low-altitude UAVs are in general faster to deploy, more flexibly re-configured, and are likely to have better communication channels due to the presence of short-range line-of-sight (LoS) links. However, the utilization of highly mobile and energy-constrained UAVs for wireless communications also introduces many new challenges. In this article, we provide an overview of UAV-aided wireless communications, by introducing the basic networking architecture and main channel characteristics, highlighting the key design considerations as well as the new opportunities to be exploited.