First Responders Got Wings: UAVs to the Rescue of Localization Operations in Beyond 5G Systems

Abstract

Natural and human-made disasters have dramatically increased during the last decades. Given the strong relationship between first responders localization time and the final number of deaths, the modernization of search-and-rescue operations has become imperative. In this context, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)-based solutions are the most promising candidates to take up on the localization challenge by leveraging on emerging technologies such as: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (RIS) and Orthogonal Time Frequency Space (OTFS) modulations. In this paper, we capitalize on such recently available techniques by shedding light on the main challenges and future opportunities to boost the localization performance of state-of-the-art techniques to give birth to unprecedentedly effective missing victims localization solutions.

Accepted for publication in IEEE Communications Magazine

References in corpus (3)

• UAV Communications for 5G and Beyond: Recent Advances and Future Trends
• SARDO: An Automated Search-and-Rescue Drone-based Solution for Victims Localization
• Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces in Challenging Environments: Underwater, Underground, Industrial and Disaster

Cited by in corpus (8)

• AI-based Drone Assisted Human Rescue in Disaster Environments: Challenges and Opportunities
• Leveraging RIS-Enabled Smart Signal Propagation for Solving Infeasible Localization Problems
• On the Ground and in the Sky: A Tutorial on Radio Localization in Ground-Air-Space Networks
• LOKO: Localization-aware Roll-out Planning for Future Mobile Networks
• HELPS for Emergency Location Service: Hyper-Enhanced Local Positioning System
• Iterative RNDOP-Optimal Anchor Placement for Beyond Convex Hull ToA-based Localization: Performance Bounds and Heuristic Algorithms
• Diffraction Aided Wireless Positioning
• Experimental Validation of a 3GPP Compliant 5G-Based Positioning System