Communication provision for a team of remotely searching UAVs: a mobile relay approach

In many applications it is desirable to deploy unmanned autonomous vehicles to remote real-world locations, at considerable distance from any fixed infrastructure, rendering direct communication impossible; for example in the Wilderness Search and Rescue (WiSaR) scenario. However, data transfer between such vehicles and other participants is required for control, safety, monitoring progress and sharing of acquired information. This paper proposes a method of using an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) as a highly mobile relay, providing a delay tolerant link between a fixed base-station and a team of searching UAVs to meet this vital communication need. A communication model is described that permits a single relay to simultaneously collect data from multiple operational UAVs at pre-arranged meetings, both theoretical and experimental simulation results demonstrate the characteristics and effectiveness of this approach in a realistic cooperative sensing scenario.