Proceedings of the 2014 IEEE/SICE International
2
Symposium on System Integration, Chuo University,
Tokyo, Japan, December 13-15, 2014
Scheduling UAVs to Bridge Communications in Delay-Tolerant
Networks Using Real-Time Scheduling Analysis Techniques
Jagun Kwon and Stephen Hailes
‑
Abstract— We present an approach to utilising unmanned
aerial vehicles (UAVs) as communication relays, in which a
dynamic positioning algorithm drives UAVs automatically to
achieve the best incoming and outgoing signal strength and
packet throughput among participating ground nodes. This
approach can be applied to real-life scenarios with widely
distributed communicating nodes, for example, disasters like
earthquakes with damaged communication towers, and
harvesting sensor readings from distributed sensor nodes.
UAVs can establish a direct communication link between
multiple nodes if they are within communication ranges to the
UAVs. If this is not possible, the UAVs may be scheduled to
bridge communications between the nodes with some time
delay. In other words, a delay tolerant network (DTN) among
participating nodes can be formed whereby the UAVs fly over
the nodes to collect, buffer and deliver data. This is useful in
scenarios such as harvesting data from a widely distributed
sensor network (e.g., flood monitoring in jungle).
We provide a scheduling analysis framework to show if a
UAV can cover a given set of distributed nodes. Each sensor
node may have a different priority, required frequency of visits
and communication range. The framework was inspired by the
response-time analysis approach for scheduling tasks in the
real-time scheduling literature. In essence, we analyse the
worst-case response time and schedulability for a UAV to visit
and process communication requests for the lowest priority
node among the participants.
We also demonstrate that this approach can interact with a
physics simulator that models wind speed and turbulence, and
learn and optimise on possible routes and positions for UAVs.
I. INTRODUCTION
In recent years, the use of lightweight, flexible unmanned
aerial vehicles (UAVs) has been a popular idea in diverse
applications ranging from surveillance missions to rare
animal tracking. UAVs can be equipped with various
antenna technologies, GPS, video cameras, infra-led cameras
among others and can be deployed to incidents fast whilst
flying at low altitudes. This ability has motivated us to
consider utilising UAVs as communication relays in
scenarios such as cost-effective data harvesting in a widely
distributed sensor network (e.g., flood monitoring in jungles)
as well as in the event of emergences (such as earthquakes,
fires, and military operations and other disasters), where
parts of the communication infrastructure could be damaged
and it is difficult to recover them within a short period of
time, and hence no direct communication between nodes is
possible. In such applications, UAVs can be used to extend
the communication range of remaining facilities in order for
ground-based nodes to communicate with those that are not
Jagun Kwon and Stephen Hailes are both with University College
London (UCL), University of London, WC1E 6BT, UK (e-mail:
jagun.kwon@ucl.ac.uk, s.hailes@cs.ucl.ac.uk).
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SaP2C.
in direct contact.
This paper investigates the problem of quickly positioning
UAVs in such aforementioned application areas. In
particular, we present our work on enabling UAVs to
maximise communication quality by dynamically
manoeuvring to a position where the packet delivery rate and
signal-to-noise ratios (SNR) between participants are
maximised. UAVs may be deployed from different positions,
and eventually will find a position by constantly searching
for the balance in SNR(s) and packet throughputs of
participating nodes. A PID controller is used for each
communication path to drive the UAV in the correct
direction, meaning that the bigger the control error is (i.e.,
the difference in SNR and packet throughput), the faster the
UAV moves towards an optimal position.
In doing so, we have discovered an interesting behaviour
that, if an area consisting of multiple ground-based nodes
cannot be covered by a single UAV (or a limited number of
UAVs) to establish direct communication links through the
relay, it is still possible to set up a form of delay tolerant
network (DTN) for the given area. In such scenarios, the
UAV will circulate among the nodes to buffer and deliver
packets. This DTN-like behaviour may not be suitable for
real-time voice communications, but may be still worthwhile
for (push-to-talk voice) messaging or text/data driven
communications, where a few minutes of delay is usually
tolerable. In this regard, we provide a scheduling analysis
framework and an illustration to show if a UAV can cover a
given set of distributed nodes, which is inspired by the
response-time analysis approach for scheduling real-time
tasks in the real-time scheduling literature.
The scope and contributions of the paper are as follows;
• A dynamic, optimising algorithm for positioning UAVs
to establish the best communication quality,
• Application of the control theory (i.e., a PID controller
per communication path) to drive UAVs in bridging
communications in order to maximise the signal-to-noise
(SNR) ratio and packet throughput among participants,
• Formation of a priority-based delay tolerant network
(DTN) among participating nodes that cannot establish
direct communication links using a UAV, and the
development of a framework for scheduling visits of a
UAV and the worst-case response time analysis,
• Integration with a realistic physics simulation model
that reflects the actual position of each UAV in the
presence of a varying degree of wind, turbulences, and
other physical conditions.
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work to
analyse the schedulability of UAVs using the real-time
analysis techniques and use the PID controller algorithm to
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position UAVs.
This paper is organised as follows. Section 2 briefly
presents the system model used in this paper. Section 3 will
discuss the dynamic positioning algorithm for bridging
communications while Section 4 will present our scheduling
analysis framework for delay-tolerant networks. Some
simulation details will be given in Section 5. Limitations of
our approach are given in Section 6. We draw a few
conclusions and discuss future work in Section 7.
II. SYSTEM MODEL
We assume that there are a set of UAVs available for use
in bridging communications between a set of mobile and/or
ground nodes spread over a certain area, which is
characterised as a grid space (e.g., 1x1m initially). The
number of UAVs and participating nodes can vary
dynamically. In other words, the system model consists of
• At least one or multiple cooperating UAVs that are
possibly deployed from various locations,
• A set of functional ground and/or mobile nodes in an
area with varying communication ranges characterised by
their radio models.
We make the following assumptions, some of which may
be possible to relax in the near future.
• A grid space of 1x1 metre for measuring and evaluating
SNRs for different locations in a map,
• The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is measurable for each
participating node (i.e., for each node, the SNR to and
from a UAV is measured and an SNR map is constructed),
• Packet throughputs, i.e., the number of packets
successfully delivered to a UAV from each ground station
per second are available,
• The use of a simple waypoint mobility model for UAVs’
movement,
• The availability of the radio propagation model for each
wireless network technology and antenna used,
• The locations of all nodes are known,
When attempting to bridge communications, the UAV can
obtain the SNR values of packets from/to each participating
node in the presence of a realistic, user-configurable radio
propagation model, and is able to calculate the packet
throughput for successfully delivered packets between nodes
and each UAV.
III. DYNAMIC UAV POSITIONING ALGORITHM FOR BRIDGING
COMMUNICATIONS
A. THE PID-CONTROLLER BASED GREEDY ALGORITHM
The algorithm we describe below instructs each UAV to
move towards or away from certain participating nodes in
order to achieve the best communication quality for a given
set of nodes. One of the key goals of the algorithm is to
reduce the time it takes to establish communication links
between nodes (hence, the use of a PID controller to drive a
UAV). More specifically, the optimising criteria that we use
to position UAVs are as follows.
• The SNRs (Signal-to-Noise Ratios) of packets from and
to each participating node to be equally balanced whilst
maximising the combined SNRs for packets between
nodes and the UAV on a communication path.
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• The packet throughputs for successfully delivered
packets between participating nodes to be balanced.
• Bit error rates (BER) can also be measured if required
The algorithm in Figure 1 attempts to find a place where
the average SNR values of packets from and to different
sources become close to the same, meaning that the
communication relay is not biased towards any particular
node in terms of SNRs and stays exactly where needed the
most. In general, the UAV may fly at the lowest possible
altitude unless there are obstacles or it has reached the best
SNR on the given altitude and is trying to test SNR at
different altitudes. The SNR values may be aged over time
with an expiration time limit (e.g., exponential smoothing).
In doing so, we use the SNRs and packet throughputs as
input to a PID controller for each communication path,
which calculates the UAV’s next waypoints. This means that
the bigger the control errors, the faster the UAV will move
to its next waypoint. The control errors are defined as
follows in this context;
• Packet throughput control error = the difference in
packet throughput for communications between the UAV
and each participating node on a single communication
path where the UAV is used as a relay,
• SNR control error = the difference in average SNR for
packets delivered to and from the UAV on a single
communication path.
In essence, the algorithm instructs the UAV to move on
either x or y axis by MAX( PIDcal(Throughput),
PIDcal(SNRs)) in order to make the greatest impact as early
as possible.
Start=pos’ // UAV’s position
Initialise SNRMaps for each direction d of each comm. path p
While true do
pos = pos’
Send/Receive echo msg to every node at a regular interval, i
Update SNRMaps // update SNRs for all paths for current pos
Update PacketThru // update Packet throughput for all paths
// Move towards either node(n) or node (n+1) on the X axis
pos.x’ = MAX or MIN (PIDcal(p.node(n).PacketThru,
p.node(n+1).PacketThru),
PIDcal(p.node(n).AvgSNRsum, p.node(n+1).AvgSNRsum))
// Move towards either node(n+2) or node (n+3) on the Y axis
pos.y’ = MAX or MIN (PIDcal(p.node(n+2).PacketThru,
p.node(n+3).PacketThru),
PIDcal(p.node(n+2).AvgSNRsum, p.node(n+3).AvgSNRsum))
pos’ = pos.x’ ⊕ pos.y’
Fly to pos’ and Wait for next control period
end while
Figure 1. The greedy UAV Positioning Algorithm
The algorithm in Figure 1 records the average SNR values
for each grid cell as the UAV moves around. Unless the UAV
has regular periodic messages to deliver, it sends out echo
request messages to all nodes involved at a regular interval.
Upon receiving a returning packet with an SNR above a
preset threshold, the UAV will move towards a node whose
SNR value is lower using the PID controller’s output. If it
does not receive any packet in return from any participating
node, it will keep moving towards the node that has not
responded assuming it is out of communication range. In
such cases the control error will be large, meaning that the
PID controller’s output will make the UAV move fast, and
the UAV will keep sending echo request message to the node
in question. As soon as it receives a response with a valid
SNR and packet throughput, the PID controller will make
judgements as to how fast the UAV should move.
The UAV will keep manoeuvring until the number of
packets arriving from all participating nodes will balance out
at one point with the SNR values from the nodes being more
or less the same – reaching the most advantageous position
for a communication relay in terms of the SNR and packet
throughputs. In general, the greater the number of deployed
UAVs is, the higher the coverage and performance will be.
fly back and forth between the nodes in order to collect,
buffer and deliver data. This is a simple case in which the
UAV only needs to find the signal strength and packet
throughput for each grid or position it flies over. Once the
required thresholds for signal strength and packet throughput
are reached, the UAV can begin to collect or transmit data
for a required amount of time or number of packets. If there
are variances between visits in the amount of data to transfer
or time to hover on a particular node, we may only consider
the worst case for the purpose of the response time or
schedulability analysis. Hence, the smaller the variances are,
the more accurate such analyses will be overall.

IV.FORMATION OF A PRIORITY-BASED DELAY TOLERANT

NETWORK USING A UAV AND SCHEDULABILITY
ANALYSIS
When two or more nodes are out of direct communication
range even with the available UAV(s), such UAVs can fly
around to collect, buffer and deliver packets between the
participating nodes. This is possible when the quality of
service requirement is manageable (i.e., schedulable) and
visits are made at a regular frequency (or driven by some
kind of a priority mechanism with periods). This can be seen
as a real-time scheduling problem and it is possible to test
the schedulability or response times for a given set of nodes
and UAVs.
CATEGORISATION Figure 4. Case 3 - Indirect relay between nodes - a more complex case
First, we have categorised some of the possible cases for
one UAV and a number of nodes, which can be extended for Interesting problems arise when there are more than two
multiple UAVs. nodes and a subset of them can be covered by a UAV
simultaneously. For instance, in Case 3 in Figure 4 as
illustrated above, the UAV may need to fly to node 1 through
3 one by one. Alternatively, the UAV may only need to visit
Node 1 and 2 in turn if the radio ranges of Node 2 and 3
overlap with each other and can communicate with each
other because the UAV’s wireless comm range can reach
Node 3 through Node 2. Or, the UAV can take only Route 3
to communicate with Node 2 and 3 simultaneously, leaving
Figure 2. Case 1 - Bridging communication directly between nodes
Route 2 obsolete in either cases.
Starting with the simplest case as shown above in Figure 2
(Case 1), direct communication may be established using
one UAV. The UAV will move between the two nodes to
balance the SNRs and packet throughputs from and to each
of the nodes.
In the second case, as in Figure 3, there is no direct
communication link between two nodes and the UAV will

Figure 3. Case 2 - Indirect bridging example Figure 5. Case 4 - Indirect relay between nodes - a delay tolerant

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 The cost of taking Route 1 and 3 may be different, and in
this case, taking Route 1 may incur a shorter travel time for
the UAV (assuming data from Node 3 are relayed instantly
through Node 2 upon request, and wind and other physical
conditions are the same), and hence is a better scheduling
strategy. If, however, there is strong head/tail wind on Route
1, preventing the UAV to fly slowly, it would be beneficial to
reschedule and take Route 3 instead. Such decisions can be
made dynamically by considering the current physical
circumstances, which we will show in the next section by
interacting with a physics simulator called QRSim [4].
Here, we have discovered a few optimisation criteria;
• Minimising travel time for UAVs
o Reducing UAVs’ total flight time
• Schedulabiliy of a group of nodes by one UAV
o Meeting deadlines
o Improving communication efficiency
• Maximising coverage by one UAV.
Similarly, Case 4 and 5 in Figure 5 and 6 respectively deal
with geographically separated multiple nodes, in which
some of them can communicate with each other
simultaneously with the help of a UAV. As shown in Case 4,
the UAV may first take Route 1, and then Route 2 as soon as
the signal strength and/or throughput for Node 2 reach the
required thresholds. This will increase the chance of serving
Node 2 and 3 concurrently. Whilst en route to Node 3, the
UAV may have to stay or fly back if the signal strength
drops below the threshold. Alternatively, the UAV may only
take Route 3 since it minimises the total travel time and can
handle requests for Node 2 and 3 simultaneously. Case 5 in
Figure 6 illustrates this point.
Figure 6. Case 5 - Bridging communications forming a DTN
Finding a position with the best possible combined SNR
and throughput (i.e., Position 1 in Case 5) is one of the key
challenges in scheduling a UAV. Our approach relies on the
PID controller based algorithm introduced earlier that drives
a UAV between nodes in order to find a position where the
SNR value and packet throughput for each direction of
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communication path become balanced. The UAV can
remember that position, to which it may fly over directly on
the next subsequent visits. This will save the overall travel
time and, hence, improve the schedulability, response times,
and/or area coverage.
However, if there is an imbalance in the required
bandwidths for Node 2 and 3, the UAV may hover closer to
one particular node to obtain a better signal strength or
packet throughput for that node.
UAV SCHEDULABILITY ANALYSIS
One of the goals of this paper is to provide a
schedulability analysis framework determining whether a
UAV can cover a set of nodes that are characterised by their
priorities, communication times, distances from other nodes
(travelling time or cost), required frequency of visits
(periods), and deadlines.
Inspired by the well-known response time analysis in the
real-time literature [1, 2], we apply the same technique to
analyse the worst-case response time for the lowest priority
node, which is the sum of the computation times and
blocking times of all higher priority nodes plus its own
computation time. If the response time for the lowest priority
node is within the deadline for the same node, it is said that
the whole nodes in the group can be schedulable with the
given UAV. This is for nodes with statically assigned
priorities, hence, the following analogies.
Real-time scheduling
UAV scheduling parameters
parameters
Processing elements (such as
UAV(s)
CPU)
Tasks with a priority (P), Nodes with a priority (P), frequency of
period (T), deadline (D) visit (T), deadline per period (D)
Communication time (or the required
Computation time (C) on each number of packets to receive and
period (P) deliver) on each visit (P)
Time to travel determined by the
Context-switching time (i.e., distance to be covered / the maximum
jitters), and Blocking time (B) speed
Figure 7. Scheduling a UAV for a DTN of nodes - an example
For instance, assume there are three nodes as shown in the %100 # % 100 #
w31 = 100 + Max(10,12,20) + $ " (5 + 20 × 2) + $ 240 " (50 + 12 × 2)
example in Figure 7, and each of them is assigned a static $120 " $ "
priority depending on the criticality, value or importance of = 100 + 20 + 1(5 + 40) + 1(50 + 24)
the messages to be received and delivered to that particular = 239 s
node. % 239 # % 239 #
w32 = 100 + Max(10,12,20) + $ " (5 + 20 × 2) + $ 240 " (50 + 12 × 2)
Node Priority Comm. Time Period Deadline $ 120 " $ "
= 100 + 20 + 2(5 + 40) + 1(50 + 24)
1 1 5s 120s 120s
! = 284s
2 2 50s 240s 240s This shows that the lowest priority Node 3 is schedulable
3 3 100s 300s 300s with the current configuration, i.e., the response time 284s is
less than the 300s deadline.
Routes Distance Time to travel Note that in the equations above, the first blocking time is
for the UAV to travel to the node in question from anywhere
1 50m 10s within the group of nodes; we take the worst case unless we
2 60m 12s know exactly where the UAV is. This can be known at
runtime, and will be able to produce a less pessimistic result.
3 100m 20s
The second blocking time is for the time it takes for the
Response time and schedulability analysis UAV to visit a higher priority pre-empting node while
Based on the scheduling parameters above, we develop dealing with a current lower priority node’s request. This
and apply the following worst-case response time analysis must be doubled since the UAV will have to travel to and
framework that is adapted to our scenarios. from the higher priority node and hence the interruption is
% wn # longer.
win +1 = Ci + Bi + ∑ $ i " (C j + B j × 2) DISCUSSIONS
j∈hp ( i ) $ T j " The goals of the presented approach in general are 1)
!
where hp(i) is the set of tasks with priority higher than obtaining the worst-case response time to be able to test the
task i. schedulability for the given UAVs to cover a set of
B j × 2 is added every time the current node is interrupted participating nodes, 2) serving as many nodes as possible by
because of the time it takes for the UAV to travel to and one UAV, and, 3) designing and implementing the UAV
from a pre-empting higher-priority node. scheduler and to integrate in a network simulator, such as
By applying this to an example case above, we obtain the ns-3 [3]. To the best of our knowledge, this is one of the first
following results. We take the maximum blocking time out to analyse schedulability of UAVs, apart from commercial
of the travel times on all routes because we assume that the examples like [5], whose techniques are not well known.
UAV may start from any one of all the nodes. If the UAV is Bearing this in mind, we have the following discussion
launched from a distant location, the travel cost may be points.
added to the final response time. • The worst-case response time at any given position for a
UAV is defined by
Response time for Node 1 • the worst-case communication time,
w11 = 5 + Max(10,12,20) + 0 • the travel time (or blocking time or jitter), in which
nodes cannot communicate with UAVs, and
! = 25s
• interruptions made by high priority nodes.
Response time for Node 2
• Blocking times (i.e., travel times) may vary and must
% 50 #
w12 = 50 + Max(10,12,20) + ∑ $120 " (5 + 10 × 2) reflect the UAV’s current position in order to produce a
$ "
j∈hp ( i )
more accurate result. The overall schedulability is affected
! = 95s
B
Node 2 can only be interrupted by Node 1. So, ! j = 10.
Hence, the response time for Node 2 = 95 on the first
iteration. If this is reiterated,
% 95 #
w22 = 50 + Max(10,12,20) + ∑ $120 " (5 + 10 × 2)
j∈hp ( i ) $ "
! = 95s
The result is the same, 95s, hence the worst case response
time for Node 2 is 95s.
Response time for Node 3 =

Figure 8. Finding neighbouring nodes that can be served together

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 initially by the starting position of the UAV. However, for
the worst-case, we may consider rather pessimistic results
of the response-time analysis.
• We assume the UAV knows where the nodes in a group
are, what their communication requirements are in terms
of periods or frequencies of visit, maximum
communication times, and travel times.
• The heading direction or angle of UAVs often affects
the communication times needed and link quality when the
UAV is in contact with a node and trying to move towards
the next node, and may lengthen or shorten the travel time.
• The response time analysis can be pessimistic as a UAV
can serve more than one node concurrently (which is one
of the limitations of the approach outlined above), and
must be extended to deal with multiple UAVs. In order
words, while a UAV is travelling it can serve more than
one node, i.e., the UAV is opportunistically parallel
processing communication requests. Hence, the
communication times for closely located nodes whose
communication ranges overlap may be reduced. We
outline some of the possible improvement strategies
below.
Improvement Strategies - Dealing with overlapping cases
In the Case 3, 4 and 5 above, some of the nodes can be
served concurrently whilst a UAV is flying nearby two
separate nodes. This means that the response time can be
further reduced for the given nodes and the UAV may be
able to handle more nodes. Hence, finding nodes that can be
served simultaneously and instructing the UAVs to fly on a
new path to a new imaginary waypoint that minimises the
communication and travel time is important. The original
remaining blocking time can be nullified as soon as UAV is
in a viable/required communication range.
The blocking time for a communication/travel path is
calculated as follows, where Dist stands for the distance
between two nodes, MVCR the maximum viable
communication range between a node and a UAV, and S the
speed of the given UAV.
Buav1, path1 =
Dist (node1, node2) MVCR(node1, uav1, path1) MVCR(node2, uav1, path1)
− −
! S uav1 S uav1
For instance, if the distance between two nodes is 10m,
the UAV’s speed 5m/s, and the MVCRs for Node 1 and 2 are
both 2m, the blocking (i.e., travelling and non-
communicating) time is 1.2s, because
10m 2m 2m
Buav1, path1 = − −
5m / s 5m / s 5m / s
! = 2s − 0.4s − 0.4s = 1.2s
Based on this observation, we can create a new path
leading to a position where the UAV can serve more than
one node at the same time. In fact, we can come up with
multiple positions on the grid space that quality as the
MVCRs for nodes that can be served simultaneously by one
UAV. But, among all of them, the one that results in the
shortest blocking or travel time will be selected as the new
shortest path and new waypoint position to serve a particular
set of nodes. Hence, this problem can be broken down into
1) deciding which neighbouring nodes can be served
together (i.e., overlapping nodes in terms of MVCRs either
directly or indirectly with the help of a UAV), and
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2) finding a waypoint to serve a given set of nodes that
minimises the distance the UAV has to travel from its current
position.
For the first problem, it can be said that two nodes overlap
each other directly in terms of communication range if the
MVCR(node1) + MVCR(node2) > Dist(node1, node2). In
addition, even if two nodes do not overlap directly, they can
be served simultaneously if MCVR(node1) + MVCR(node2)
+ 2MVCR(UAV) > Dist(node1, node2).
Let us suppose that nodes that can be served
simultaneously can be obtained by a function ServSim(node)
which will return a set of nodes that overlaps each other in
terms of MVCR either directly or indirectly and can be
served by one UAV. Hence, in the example below the
ServSim returns
ServSim(node1) = {}
ServSim(node2) = {node3}
ServSim(node3) = {node2}
Hence, node 2 and 3 can be served together and the ideal
positions with good enough MVCR values will be an area on
the grid space marked as + below. It must take into account
the UAV’s MVCR to come up with the area.
For the second problem, i.e., finding the shortest path
from the UAV’s current position to a waypoint where
multiple neighbouring nodes can be served together, we need
to know where the UAV is located dynamically, and then
calculate the nearest waypoint on the grid space out of a set
of possible candidates. The current location of UAV affects
the decision.
Runtime Scheduler Design
The response time analysis alone does not tell how nodes
should be scheduled or how UAVs should move at runtime.
Rather, it assumes the worst case scenario where all nodes
are activated simultaneously (i.e., the critical instance [2]),
and determines whether a set of nodes are schedulable by a
UAV. For this reason, we need a runtime scheduler that
actually manages the UAV’s movements among the
participating nodes - a scheduler deployed on a UAV; we
briefly describe the key algorithm and high-level
S uav1
implementation details.
Runtime Scheduling Criteria
Scheduling criteria are dynamically determined by
• Time since last visit (t) to each node
• Distance to the target node (d)
• Required frequency (f) for each node
• Priority assignment strategy and priority for each station (p)
• Threshold = (t * d)f
*w
• When threshold reaches 1, the UAV must move to the node of
interest
There are a few priority assignment strategies in the
literature for real-time systems. The most common and
widely known is the rate monotonic priority assignment
technique[1], which assigns the highest priority to ones that
are executed most frequently (i.e., with the shortest period).
In the case of scheduling UAVs over distributed nodes, this
means assigning higher priorities to those that require more
frequent visits. One variation to this is the deadline
monotonic priority assignment technique, which assigns a
higher priority to a more urgent task. It is also possible to
assign priorities according to the value or importance of the
368
data to receive. Priorities may change at runtime if there are
dynamic changes in the number of nodes or UAVs, or in the
scheduling requirements. For such scenarios, the earliest-
deadline-first (EDF) or other dynamic scheduling
frameworks can also be used – however, statically
determining the worst-case response time would be
impossible in such cases.
V. IMPLEMENTATION AND SIMULATION
We have implemented the algorithm and example cases in
the ns-3 [3] with the following details;
• Interchangeable radio & propagation models
• 802.11 WiFi(b), Cost231, LogLossPropagation, etc
• Waypoint Mobility model for UAVs (max speed 5m/s)
• Constant mobility model for ground stations
• Sends/receives echo messages every second to check
signal strength & packet throughput
• Moves UAV towards a station with a weaker SNR &
lower packet throughput
We have also integrated our ns-3 simulation with a
realistic physical model called QRSim[4] that was developed
in MatLab - see the following figure for an illustration. It
allows dealing with realistic physical elements, such as wind
and turbulences.
! dealing with moving targets or nodes, and using the speed of
Figure 9. Location of multiple nodes and 1 UAV with comm. links
! 2.
Figure 10. NS-3 interacting with QRSim [4] via Protocol Buffer
In the figure above, the fluctuating red-line illustrates the
location of the UAV on the x-axis, overshooting slightly due
to the PID-controller output, but eventually balancing out.
The SNRs for packets to and from each access points (i.e.,
ground stations) as well as the total number of packets
978-1-4799-6944-9/14/$31.00 ©2014 IEEE
received are shown. Notice that the numbers of packets
delivered climb constantly as the UAV is trying to reach an
optimal position between two nodes (node 3 and 4 in the
example). The SNR values are not clearly visible in the
figure due to different scales (see the bottom), but they also
fluctuate as the UAV is nearing the point where they balance
out eventually.
VI. LIMITATIONS
The worst-case response time analysis is pessimistic, but
some improvement strategies are suggested in the
discussions section.
The characterisation of nodes, i.e., by period,
communication time, and so on may be limiting in real-life.
There may extra considerations or preferences to take into
account (and other importance parameters).
In addition, the actual physical radio environment may be
imperfect and should be investigated. It is also necessary to
deal with interferences; we have used a simple jamming
model in ns-3 for now – one that ignores the collision
detection and broadcasts a lengthy packet periodically.
VII. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK
In this paper, we presented an approach to utilising UAVs
as communication relays and discussed different cases and
ways to position them to maximise the communication
efficiency. It is also possible to create a delay tolerant
network and we have shown how one could analyse the
schedulability of a set of nodes by means of the response-
time analysis from the real-time literature. We have
demonstrated how this approach could interact with a
physics simulator to better reflect physical elements and
dynamically optimise the speed and routes of UAVs.
As part of the future work, we plan to devise a formal
model-checking approach to determine whether a set of
given nodes are schedulable or if not, how many UAVs are
required to make them schedulable. We are also interested in
the objects and directions to better predict possible
waypoints of UAVs. It may be possible to employ multiple
UAVs and assign them groups of nodes to serve. For a large
number of nodes that cannot be covered by one UAV, it is
necessary to cluster nodes into smaller subgroups, so that a
UAV can each serve a group of nodes.
There are a number of strategies for grouping nodes,
depending on the following criteria;
• Required frequency of visits to nodes
• Distance and travel times between nodes
• Communication overheads
REFERENCES
1. C.L.Liu, J.Layland, "Scheduling algorithms for multiprogramming in
a hard real-time environment”, Journal of the ACM 20(1), 1973.
A. Burns and A. Wellings, Real-Time Systems and Programming
Languages (4th ed.), Addison-Wesley, 2009.
3. NS-3 Network Simulator, available at http://www.nsnam.org/, last
accessed in August 2014.
4. QRSim, Multiplatform Quadrotors Simulator, available at https://
github.com/UCL-CompLACS/qrsim, last accessed in 08/2014.
5. OrbitLogic, http://www.orbitlogic.com/products/uav.php, 08/2014.
6. Google, Protocol Buffers, https://code.google.com/p/protobuf/, last
accessed 12/2013
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