Stability of Cloud-Based UAV Systems Supporting Big Data Acquisition and Processing

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) technology has been widely applied in both military and civilian applications. Recent researches on UAV systems feature in the dramatic augment of the variety and number of equipped sensors, which results in such an issue that multiple UAVs cannot afford to handle the big data generated by a range of sensors in the air. Considering this practical problem, in this paper, we propose a cloud-based UAV system which incorporates the computing capability of the terrestrial cloud into the UAV systems. Relying on proposed cloud-based UAV system, one critical theoretic issue is how to acquire the big data generated by the sensors while guaranteeing a stable operation state of the system. First, we analyze the cloud-based system’s on-demand service ability as well as its impact on UAVs’ control procedure. Second, the UAV cloud control system is modeled as a network control system. Moreover, the stable condition of the UAV cloud control system is derived, which reveals the relationship between the acquisition rate of sensor data and the stability of the cloud-based UAV system. Finally, simulations are conducted to verify the effectiveness of our theoretical analysis.