Handover management for flying objects (UAVS)

Abstract

This thesis presents a handover management for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) networks. Currently, Ad-hoc network construction without network infrastructure gains much attention. One promising solution is to construct an aerial network by using Drones, which is so called Net- Drones. The Drones act as access points to users on the ground and can provide the network connection that is required, which can be useful in areas where network infrastructure has been destroyed by natural disasters or network overloading due to sudden population increase in scenarios like sports events. Handover management for UAV aerial networks is key in achieving optimal network performance in the aforementioned areas. These networks face numerous challenges such as limited battery capacity for UAVs, time varying nature of the aerial environment leading to frequent handovers and Co-Channel Interference (CCI). Particularly, failure to resolve the frequent handover issues will result into not only unsuccessful seamless handover but also the unnecessary frequent handover trials or attempts. An effective coverage decision algorithm has been proposed whose objective is to adjust the UAV height and the UAV separation distance. We derive closed form expressions that are used to obtain the probabilities of seamless handover success (Ps) and the false handover initiation (Pf) which are used to evaluate the coverage decision algorithm that has been proposed. Using these closed form expressions, the optimal handover success probability is determined while the optimal UAV separation distance and height is decided to maximize the SINR and mitigate interference as much as possible for this method. Finally, numerical results are obtained to justify the derived expressions and show the impact of the major system parameters on the performance of the network. Lastly, conclusion and future recommendations are provided to assist in the succeeding research prospects