UAV-Aided Cooperation for FSO Communication Systems

Relay-assisted FSO systems were proposed as a means for remedying the effects of the various atmospheric impairments on the quality of the FSO signal. Conventional relay-assisted FSO systems, however, are designed around two basic assumptions: relays are buffer-free, and relays are stationary. This article proposes to improve the performance of the existing relay-assisted FSO systems by relaxing both of these highly restrictive assumptions through the integration of UAVs as buffer-aided moving relays into the conventional relay-assisted FSO systems. Specifically, two possible simple integration scenarios are proposed and analyzed through simulation. The obtained simulation results demonstrate the great potential associated with the proposed highly promising, innovative, hybrid FSO architecture. Given that high performance gains are observed under small buffer sizes, it becomes conceivable to employ buffer-aided moving relaying UAVs to serve a variety of other purposes. This includes, for instance, having these UAVs oversee the operation of amateur drones for potential misbehavior or wrongdoing within the area of their deployment.