Down the road, researchers also should consider ways of building more dynamic radio communication capabilities using software-defined networking and network virtualization. This would make it easier to repurpose a common drone platform for various missions without adding new hardware.
Today there is often a tight coupling between the drone communications design and their mission. Mishra wanted to spark discussion on how to bring more flexibility for different applications. For example, how could we make it easier to deploy a drone for a search and rescue mission one day and then as a base station for an emergency response team the next?
Mishra hopes this survey guides the development of better testbeds to explore some of the technologies and tradeoffs required to build more resilient and scalable drone networks.
For example, no one has applied chaos engineering to drone communications researchers. Drone testbeds could explore the impact of breaking different aspects of communication to craft more resilient designs.
Greater exploration into drone communication issues could also help guide industry and regulatory negotiations on better standards and regulations to improve drone reliability and address public concerns about security, privacy, and safety.
