The technology of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) renders itself easily to a variety of applications because of their characteristics such as flexibility, quick deployment and cost effectiveness. Developing countries can harness UAV technology for humanitarian and development goals. This paper presents five interesting UAV applications for developing countries and these include disaster management, agriculture, delivery, surveillance of transmission lines and network coverage. UAVs aid the process of disaster management because they can be quickly deployed to take imagery which is used by rescue teams. They offer a cheap alternative to satellites and manned aircraft for agricultural mapping and management. Developing countries are faced with the major challenge of inadequate infrastructure which can be overcome by using UAVs to make especially emergency deliveries. UAVs are more effective at inspecting power transmission lines than manual techniques especially in developing countries where it is expected that the power transmission lines will span over tens of thousands of kilometres. Network coverage can be achieved cost effectively using UAVs for rural remote areas that are neglected by network operators because of their low economic return. This paper also discusses challenges that must be overcome to fully exploit UAV technology for the mentioned applications. Additionally, this paper presents interventions by African governments towards the development of UAV technology.

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This is a repository copy of An Improved Q-Learning Based Handover Scheme in Cellular-Connected UAV Network.

A vertical heterogeneous network (VHetNet) is an integration of aerial base stations (ABS) into the terrestrial cellular networks. ABSs are anticipated to enhance the communications performance of the network because they are mobile and are quick to deploy suitable for on demand coverage. They promise a low-cost solution for ubiquitous connectivity especially in developing countries where telecommunications infrastructure and the power grid are limited. Accurate and tractable frameworks are required to adequately quantify the communications performance of a VHetNet. In this paper we develop an analytical framework for determining the coverage probability and average rate of a heterogeneous network with aerial, macro and small base stations. We considered a scenario with low density of ABSs suited to financially constrained countries and those with security concerns over flying machines. The results show that there is an optimum ABS altitude and density that maximize the coverage probability at a specific signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) threshold. The average rate increases with density at low SIR threshold of -10 dB while at 0 dB the optimum density decreases with altitude.