Multi-Period Mission Planning of UAVs for 5G Coverage in Rural Areas: A Heuristic Approach
Nowadays, at least two billion people are experiencing a complete lack of cellular coverage. Since the lack of cellular connectivity is mostly experienced in rural zones, it is of mandatory importance to design solutions to manage cellular architectures tailored to such zones. To this aim, we consider a new cellular 5G architecture, where the Base Stations (BSs) are carried by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Specifically, we focus on the problem of planning the missions of the UAV-based BSs over the territory, with the goal of minimizing the energy consumed for moving the UAVs.