Optimal Relay Network for Aerial Remote Inspections

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), in particular multirotors, are becoming the de facto tool for aerial sensing and remote inspection. In large industrial facilities, a UAV can transmit an online video stream to inspect difficult-to-access structures, such as chimneys, deposits, and towers. However, the communication range is limited, constraining the UAV operation range. This limitation can be overcome with relaying UAVs placed between the source UAV and the control station, creating a line of communication links. In this work, we assume the use of a digital data packet network technology, namely WiFi, and tackle the problem of defining the exact placement for the relaying UAVs that creates an end-to-end channel with maximal delivery of data packets. We consider asymmetric communication links and we show an increase as large as 15% in end-to-end packet delivery ratio when compared to an equidistant placement. We also discuss the deployment of such a network and propose a fully distributed method that converges to the global optimal relay positions taking, on average, 1.4 times the time taken by a centralized method.