Department Publications

This paper addresses the problem of deploying unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to assist data collection and transmission in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). A multi-UAV deployment algorithm is proposed for an energy-constrained network to minimize the maximum transmit power of the sensor node (SN), while satisfying data rate and transmit power constraints. The problem is divided into two subproblems, namely, UAV-SN association, and UAV positioning. First, the UAV-SN association is addressed using a customized Gale-Shapley algorithm. Then, the 2D positions of the UAVs are decided using a modified pattern search algorithm. The two subproblems are solved alternatively in an iterative manner to obtain a near-optimal solution. Compared to baseline algorithms, the proposed solution results in at least 4-fold and 4.5-fold reductions in the number of iterations required for convergence, and the maximum …