Energy Efficient Deployment of VLC-Enabled UAV Using Particle Swarm Optimization

Abstract

Aerial base stations can be realized using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)-mounted access points, which offer flexible and rapid network access in scenarios where terrestrial cellular networks are challenged by high traffic loads or insufficient coverage. Visible light communication (VLC) is an emerging technology that can be integrated with UAVs to offer simultaneous communication and illumination services while having low interference, high energy efficiency, and high data rates.To achieve an efficient operation of VLC-enabled UAVs, the power consumption of the UAVs due to their mobility should be considered, as it constitutes a significant portion of the total power consumption of the UAVs, especially when compared to that of the communication needs. This paper proposes a framework to optimize the trajectories of VLC-enabled UAVs, considering a multi-objective optimization problem that jointly maximizes the sum-rate and rate fairness of the users and minimizes the power consumption of the UAVs using particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm. The results show that the proposed optimization can effectively improve the performance of the system under various user mobility scenarios and UAV deployment altitudes.

6G: Technology Evolution in Future Wireless Networks

“…Trajectories of VLC-based UAV networks are optimized using Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) such that the location of the UAV is optimized according to the location of the user. The optimization involves the parameters of rate fairness, sum rate of the network, and power consumption [56]. Transmission Matrix-Assisted Neural Network (TMANN) has been implemented to enhance the performance of the VLC-based communication network.…”