Research Challenges and Opportunities

The emergence of Aerial-aided edge computing (AAEC) which combine the aerial technologies like drones and Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with Edge Computing introduces paradigm shifts for a number of Applications - Disaster Management, Smart Cities, Remote Sensing. however, it brings a lot of research challenges also. The issues related to energy, storage and computational power limit the autonomy development of UAVs. In addition, the fact that the link between aerial nodes and ground devices is quite challenging to establish (as it needs to be both low latency and reliable) due to network dynamics, mobility as well as signal interference makes matters worse. UAVs have easy mobility, which in a way makes the UAV itself or its services mobile, and as such can exacerbate the overall design process elements if mobility is desired that those involved are expected to manage (also rendering stability of network connections quite challenging) and leads into particular security and privacy issues regarding data integrity, cyberattacks. UAVs also have constraints in energy which limits their operational facilities this makes it necessary to build algorithms which consumes less energy. However, aerial-aided edge computing presents great opportunities even in the face of these challenges. UAVs can augment network reach in hard-to-reach or non/under-served zones, providing better coverage and on-demand flexible edge resources. Automation and data capture at the sensory end, particularly in environments without or with unreliable conventional infrastructure, such as automation drones can provide the advantage of providing efficient real-time data collection and processing. This chapter addresses these research challenges with novel resource optimization, network reliability, security strategies which will unleash the best performance and experiences of the end applications by aerial-assisted edge computing.