Flying network for emergencies

The article presents an approach to the organization of a flying network among mobile communication subscribers based on WiFi (VoWiFi) technology in a disaster area where telecommunication infrastructure is completely or partially destroyed. The flying network is organized on the basis of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which interact with each other based on IEEE 802.11p wireless technology and with mobile subscribers based on IEEE 802.11n/ac wireless technologies. The interaction process between subscribers and UAVs is presented as a queuing system. Based on the developed model were measured and obtained network delay parameters and its value did not exceed 100 ms. The fulfillment of this condition was achieved by varying the number of UAVs and the channel load parameters. A series of numerical experiments showed the permissible number of UAVs to provide an acceptable quality of voice transmission between subscribers that are in the UAV coverage area. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018.