UAV-Assisted Vehicular Communication for Densely Crowded Environments

Connected and Autonomous Electric Vehicles (CAEVs) are becoming a feature of our roads in the imminent future. This disruptive technology is likely to enhance the way we get around the city in many ways by collecting accurate data in regards to the surrounding environment and events in a timely-manner. As such data that is time-sensitive where human life may be at risk requires reliable and on-time data delivery. In crowded dense environments, several issues can reduce the network performance due to the high density of objects such as skyscrapers and vehicles as well as the large number of exchanged data between connected vehicles and other objects on the road. Involving a swarm of autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), namely drones, would enhance network connectivity, reduce CAEVs communication delay, facilitate CAEVs tasks distribution, and elevate provisioning services. In this paper, a routing scheme in an autonomous UAV-connected vehicles network is proposed that provides reduced communication delay. The proposed solution has been evaluated using simulations. The collected results show the feasibility and the advantage of the UAV-assisted connected vehicle network in meeting delay and energy consumption requirements.