Muhammad Zeeshan Shakir
University of the West of Scotland, UK
Role of Flying Platforms for Global Connectivity
Abstract
Driven by an emerging use of flying platforms such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), drones and unmanned balloons in future network applications and the challenges that the 6G networks exhibit, the focus of this tutorial is to demonstrate the evolution of the flying platforms as a novel architectural enabler for radio access network (RAN) and their integration with the future cellular access and backhaul/fronthaul networks. These platforms are networked, flying and a potential way to offer high data rate, high reliability and ultra-low latent access and backhaul/fronthaul to future wireless networks. Such large scale deployable platforms and frameworks will guarantee the global information and communication requirements in future smart and resilient cities and solve the ubiquitous and global connectivity problems in many challenging network environments, e.g., coverage or capacity enhancements for remote or sparsely populated areas, social gathering, and disaster affected scenarios, etc. This tutorial will provide balanced coverage on recent trends, challenges and future research and development on the integration of flying platforms with the future wireless access and backhaul networks.