UAV-Assisted Multi-Access Edge Computing: Technologies and Challenges

As the number of end users served by wireless networks continues to grow, modern wireless communication systems have put forward higher requirements for the diversity of wireless network forms. The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) wireless network communication system will occupy an important position in the future wireless communication system. With the explosive growth of 5G data traffic and Internet of Things (IoT) devices, computing-intensive, communication-intensive, and delay-sensitive applications have put tremendous pressure on UAV communication systems. Unlike terrestrial communication networks, the inherent characteristics of UAVs make it more troublesome to deal with the above-mentioned difficulties. Multi-access edge computing (MEC) can help mobile devices improve computing and communication capabilities, and its combination with UAVs is also an open subject. This article mainly summarizes the related knowledge and research of MEC and UAV wireless communication systems. We combine the UAV system with MEC technology and try to propose a UAV-assisted MEC wireless communication system. We analyze the key methods to realize this technology and point out a series of possible challenges. This article aims to provide new ideas for the proposed new architecture of aerial computing. © 2018 IEEE.