Maximization of Data Dissemination in UAV-Supported Internet of Things

Abstract

Leveraging unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) to enable flexible and efficient mobile data dissemination is a promising solution for infrastructure-less Internet of Things (IoT) applications. In this letter, we seek to maximize the amount of UAV-assisted data dissemination among spatially dispersed IoT devices by jointly optimizing the resource assignment strategy and UAV’s mobility in the three dimensional space. Firstly, we formulate the problem of UAV-supported data dissemination as a non-convex optimization, which subjects to minimum data requirement of each IoT device, practical mobility constraints and energy budget of the UAV. Then, we develop an efficient algorithm by tailoring the framework of alternating descent and concave-convex procedure. Simulation results demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed algorithm compared with the benchmark schemes.