A Survey on UAV-Aided Maritime Communications: Deployment Considerations, Applications, and Future Challenges
Maritime activities represent a major domain of economic growth with several emerging maritime Internet of Things use cases, such as smart ports, autonomous navigation, and ocean monitoring systems. The major enabler for this exciting ecosystem is the provision of broadband, low-delay, and reliable...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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IEEE
2023-01-01
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| Series: | IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9966921/ |
| _version_ | 1797959604459536384 |
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| author | Nikolaos Nomikos Panagiotis K. Gkonis Petros S. Bithas Panagiotis Trakadas |
| author_facet | Nikolaos Nomikos Panagiotis K. Gkonis Petros S. Bithas Panagiotis Trakadas |
| author_sort | Nikolaos Nomikos |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Maritime activities represent a major domain of economic growth with several emerging maritime Internet of Things use cases, such as smart ports, autonomous navigation, and ocean monitoring systems. The major enabler for this exciting ecosystem is the provision of broadband, low-delay, and reliable wireless coverage to the ever-increasing number of vessels, buoys, platforms, sensors, and actuators. Towards this end, the integration of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in maritime communications introduces an aerial dimension to wireless connectivity going above and beyond current deployments, which are mainly relying on shore-based base stations with limited coverage and satellite links with high latency. Considering the potential of UAV-aided wireless communications, this survey presents the state-of-the-art in UAV-aided maritime communications, which, in general, are based on both conventional optimization and machine-learning-aided approaches. More specifically, relevant UAV-based network architectures are discussed together with the role of their building blocks. Then, physical-layer, resource management, and cloud/edge computing and caching UAV-aided solutions in maritime environments are discussed and grouped based on their performance targets. Moreover, as UAVs are characterized by flexible deployment with high re-positioning capabilities, studies on UAV trajectory optimization for maritime applications are thoroughly discussed. In addition, aiming at shedding light on the current status of real-world deployments, experimental studies on UAV-aided maritime communications are presented and implementation details are given. Finally, several important open issues in the area of UAV-aided maritime communications are given, related to the integration of sixth generation (6G) advancements. These future challenges include physical-layer aspects, non-orthogonal multiple access schemes, radical learning paradigms for swarms of UAVs and unmanned surface and underwater vehicles, as well as UAV-aided edge computing and caching. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-11T00:35:04Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-913505a2ebf640beb27290234228d76a |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2644-125X |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-11T00:35:04Z |
| publishDate | 2023-01-01 |
| publisher | IEEE |
| record_format | Article |
| series | IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society |
| spelling | doaj.art-913505a2ebf640beb27290234228d76a2023-01-07T00:00:55ZengIEEEIEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society2644-125X2023-01-014567810.1109/OJCOMS.2022.32255909966921A Survey on UAV-Aided Maritime Communications: Deployment Considerations, Applications, and Future ChallengesNikolaos Nomikos0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9210-9796Panagiotis K. Gkonis1https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8846-1044Petros S. Bithas2https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6858-3674Panagiotis Trakadas3https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5146-5954Department of Ports Management and Shipping, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Euboea, GreeceDepartment of Digital Industry Technologies, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Euboea, GreeceDepartment of Digital Industry Technologies, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Euboea, GreeceDepartment of Ports Management and Shipping, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Euboea, GreeceMaritime activities represent a major domain of economic growth with several emerging maritime Internet of Things use cases, such as smart ports, autonomous navigation, and ocean monitoring systems. The major enabler for this exciting ecosystem is the provision of broadband, low-delay, and reliable wireless coverage to the ever-increasing number of vessels, buoys, platforms, sensors, and actuators. Towards this end, the integration of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in maritime communications introduces an aerial dimension to wireless connectivity going above and beyond current deployments, which are mainly relying on shore-based base stations with limited coverage and satellite links with high latency. Considering the potential of UAV-aided wireless communications, this survey presents the state-of-the-art in UAV-aided maritime communications, which, in general, are based on both conventional optimization and machine-learning-aided approaches. More specifically, relevant UAV-based network architectures are discussed together with the role of their building blocks. Then, physical-layer, resource management, and cloud/edge computing and caching UAV-aided solutions in maritime environments are discussed and grouped based on their performance targets. Moreover, as UAVs are characterized by flexible deployment with high re-positioning capabilities, studies on UAV trajectory optimization for maritime applications are thoroughly discussed. In addition, aiming at shedding light on the current status of real-world deployments, experimental studies on UAV-aided maritime communications are presented and implementation details are given. Finally, several important open issues in the area of UAV-aided maritime communications are given, related to the integration of sixth generation (6G) advancements. These future challenges include physical-layer aspects, non-orthogonal multiple access schemes, radical learning paradigms for swarms of UAVs and unmanned surface and underwater vehicles, as well as UAV-aided edge computing and caching.https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9966921/Maritime communicationsmaritime Internet of Things (IoT)sixth-generation (6G) mobile communication networksspace-air-ground-sea integrated networksunderwater IoTunmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) |
| spellingShingle | Nikolaos Nomikos Panagiotis K. Gkonis Petros S. Bithas Panagiotis Trakadas A Survey on UAV-Aided Maritime Communications: Deployment Considerations, Applications, and Future Challenges IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society Maritime communications maritime Internet of Things (IoT) sixth-generation (6G) mobile communication networks space-air-ground-sea integrated networks underwater IoT unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) |
| title | A Survey on UAV-Aided Maritime Communications: Deployment Considerations, Applications, and Future Challenges |
| title_full | A Survey on UAV-Aided Maritime Communications: Deployment Considerations, Applications, and Future Challenges |
| title_fullStr | A Survey on UAV-Aided Maritime Communications: Deployment Considerations, Applications, and Future Challenges |
| title_full_unstemmed | A Survey on UAV-Aided Maritime Communications: Deployment Considerations, Applications, and Future Challenges |
| title_short | A Survey on UAV-Aided Maritime Communications: Deployment Considerations, Applications, and Future Challenges |
| title_sort | survey on uav aided maritime communications deployment considerations applications and future challenges |
| topic | Maritime communications maritime Internet of Things (IoT) sixth-generation (6G) mobile communication networks space-air-ground-sea integrated networks underwater IoT unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) |
| url | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9966921/ |
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