Study of UAV Application in Wireless Sensor Networks

In order to improve the performance of wireless sensor networks, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are introduced as an auxiliary tool. This paper reviews the main applications of UAVs in wireless sensor networks today. These applications are divided to three categories: auxiliary wireless sensor network data gathering, collaborative sensing and autonomous deployment nodes. For these three types of applications, detailed discussions are made in combination with their engineering application examples. In addition, based on the existing research, the development trend of the future hybrid system composed of UAV and wireless sensor network is analyzed. The research results show that the introduction of UAVs in wireless sensor networks can not only effectively enhance their sensing capabilities, communication capabilities, and deployment capabilities, but also hope to obtain new service methods, thereby realizing an air-ground hybrid networking information service system