Energy-Efficient Data Dissemination Using a UAV: An Ant Colony Approach

In this letter, we address the problem of minimizing the energy consumption of disseminating a library of files to a set of Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). A framework is provided, in which a subset of devices are selected to receive data from a UAV and then forward the required data to other devices. Furthermore, optimal energy-efficient path selection is considered in order to realize efficient data dissemination. Specifically, an optimization problem is formulated to minimize the energy expenditure of the IoT devices and UAV while the latter tours to disseminate the required files to the former. An ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithm is developed to solve the optimization problem. Simulation results show that the proposed framework is more energy-efficient compared to a baseline approach, where the UAV hovers above each device to deliver the data. Results also illustrate that the proposed ACO algorithm provides performance close to the optimal solution, which is obtained through exhaustive search.