*[Apologies if you receive multiple copies of this CFP]*


*[Earlier submissions will be handled as they come. Accepted manuscripts
will be published without waiting for later submissions.]*
MDPI Drones (ISSN 2504-446X), https://www.mdpi.com/journal/drones
Special Issue on *Unmanned Aerial Vehicle-Assisted Cooperative Air and
Ground Communications*
*=================*

*Dear Colleagues and Friends,*We are pleased to announce the new Special
Issue on the topic of "Cooperative Air and Ground Communications".
https://www.mdpi.com/journal/drones/special_issues/UAVCommunication
*Call for Papers*

Drones, or what is commonly known as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), could
be involved in a wide range of applications, spanning from the agricultural
domain, disaster management, and on-demand emergency communications, to
environmental monitoring, 3D mapping, and remote sensing. With the recent
advent of beyond 5G (B5G) and upcoming 6G networks, UAVs have seen
impressive growth of demand from researchers, practitioners, and investors
in multidisciplinary fields, particularly in relation to the design of
alternative UAV-assisted solutions to handle the different constraints
encountered in traditional protocols, applications, and systems. For
instance, UAVs could be deployed as relays to bridge communication gaps of
terrestrial networks witnessing instability on data transmission, such as
base stations, to extend the coverage and performance of 5G/B5G terrestrial
cellular networks, and as data collectors to gather information from
Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). However, the assistance of UAVs to such
systems and applications always raises a lot of exciting new challenges in
terms of energy consumption, positioning and trajectory optimization,
communications, and security, just to name a few. From the B5G point of
view, the current UAV assistance paradigms should also be revised to
explicitly consider different features, such as computing, network
management, intelligent decisions, and energy efficiency. The potential of
the UAV assistance paradigm paves a path towards many advantages, including
flexibility of deployment, reduced risk of dangerous environments, agility
in missions, and efficiency in communications. However, various open
challenges are still to be tackled to ensure its correct deployment. This
Special Issue (SI) targets novel scientific ideas, schemes, results,
possible applications, and new challenges and perspectives devoted to the
UAV assistance paradigm and everything around UAV networks. The particular
topics of interest for this SI include but are not limited to:

   1. Networking solutions for UAV-assisted communications.
   2. Cloud, fog, and edge computing architecture for UAV-assisted systems.
   3. SDN and NFV for UAV communications.
   4. Positioning and trajectory optimization for UAV-assisted systems.
   5. Machine learning algorithms for UAV-assisted systems.
   6. UAV-to-everything (U2X).
   7. Testbed and validation for UAV-assisted systems.
   8. Energy efficiency in UAV-assisted applications.
   9. Energy harvesting in UAV-assisted systems.
   10. Mobile edge computing in UAV-assisted systems.
   11. NDN in UAV-assisted systems.
   12. Data gathering in UAV-assisted networks.
   13. Security, trust, and privacy in UAV-assisted networks.
   14. UAV–UGV coordination.
   15. UAV–IoT networks.
   16. UAV-enabled smart city.
   17. UAV-assisted VANETs, MANETs, WSNs, and cellular networks.


* Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 November 2021 *


* [Earlier submissions will be handled as they come. Accepted manuscripts
will be published without waiting for later submissions.] *


Should you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. We are
looking forward to hearing from you.


*Guest Editors: *
Prof. Abderrahmane Lakas, United Arab Emirates University, UAE.
Prof. Mohammed Atiquzzaman, University of Oklahoma, USA.
Dr. Omar Sami Oubbati, University of Laghouat, Algeria.
Dr. Vishal Sharma, Queen's University Belfast, UK.
Dr. Sahar Hoteit, Université Paris-Saclay, CentraleSupélec, France.
Prof. Taieb Znati, United Arab Emirates University, UAE.

Best regards,

Sami,
--
Dr. Omar Sami Oubbati

Website: https://sites.google.com/view/samioubbati/
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