This paper presents a comprehensive survey on acquisition, tracking, and pointing (ATP) mechanisms used in free-space optical (FSO) communications systems. ATP mechanisms are a critical component for a wide variety of use cases of mobile FSO communications. ATP mechanisms are used to align FSO transmitter and receiver to attain line-of-sight, which is required for effective operation of FSO communications. Motion is not only associated to mobile stations but also to temporary displacements experienced by stationary FSO terminals, such as in building-to-building FSO communications. The surveyed ATP mechanisms are categorized according to their working principles, use cases, and implementation technology. The advantages and disadvantages of surveyed ATP mechanisms are listed and discussed. We also discuss current challenges and future research directions.

With the fast development of Internet of Things (IoT), the Fifth Generation (5G) wireless networks need to provide massive connectivity of IoT devices and meet the demand for low latency. To satisfy these requirements, Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access (NOMA) has been recognized as a promising solution for 5G networks to significantly improve the network capacity. In parallel with the development of NOMA techniques, Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) is becoming one of the key emerging technologies to reduce the latency and improve the Quality of Service (QoS) for 5G networks. In order to capture the potential gains of NOMA in the context of MEC, this paper proposes an edge computing aware NOMA technique which can enjoy the benefits of uplink NOMA in reducing MEC users’ uplink energy consumption. To this end, we formulate a NOMA based optimization framework which minimizes the energy consumption of MEC users via optimizing the user clustering, computing and communication resource allocation, and transmit powers. In particular, similar to frequency Resource Blocks (RBs), we divide the computing capacity available at the cloudlet to computing RBs. Accordingly, we explore the joint allocation of the frequency and computing RBs to the users that are assigned to different order indices within the NOMA clusters. We also design an efficient heuristic algorithm for user clustering and RBs allocation, and formulate a convex optimization problem for the power control to be solved independently per NOMA cluster. The performance of the proposed NOMA scheme is evaluated via simulations.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) networks have not yet received considerable research attention. Specifically, security issues are a major concern because such networks, which carry vital information, are prone to various attacks. In this paper, we design and implement a novel intrusion detection and response scheme, which operates at the UAV and ground station levels, to detect malicious anomalies that threaten the network. In this scheme, a set of detection and response techniques are proposed to monitor the UAV behaviors and categorize them into the appropriate list (normal, abnormal, suspect, and malicious) according to the detected cyber-attack. We focus on the most lethal cyber-attacks that can target an UAV network, namely, false information dissemination, GPS spoofing, jamming, and black hole and gray hole attacks. Extensive simulations confirm that the proposed scheme performs well in terms of attack detection even with a large number of UAVs and attackers since it exhibits a high detection rate, a low number of false positives, and prompt detection with a low communication overhead.

Demands for indoor positioning based services (IPS) in commercial and military fields have spurred many positioning systems and techniques. Complex electromagnetic environments (CEEs) may, however, degenerate the accuracy and robustness of some existing single systems and techniques. To overcome this drawback, fusion-based positioning of multiple systems and/or techniques have been proposed to revamp the positioning performance in CEEs. In this paper, we survey the fusion-based indoor positioning techniques and systems from seminal works to elicit the state of the art within our proposed unified fusion-based positioning framework, which consists of three fusion characteristics: source, algorithm, and weight spaces. Different from other surveys, this survey summarizes and analyzes the existing fusion-based positioning systems and techniques from three characteristics. Meanwhile, discussions in terms of lessons, challenges, and countermeasures are also presented. This survey is invaluable for researchers to acquire a clear concept of indoor fusion-based positioning systems and techniques and also to gain insights from this survey to further develop other advanced fusion-based positioning systems and techniques in the future.

With the widespread adoption of various mobile applications, the amount of traffic in wireless networks is growing at an exponential rate, which exerts a great burden on mobile core networks and backhaul links. Mobile edge caching, which enables mobile edges with cache storages, is a promising solution to alleviate this problem. In this paper, we aim to review the state of the art of mobile edge caching. We first present an overview of mobile edge caching and its advantages. We then discuss the locations where mobile edge caching can be realized in the network. We also analyze different caching criteria and their respective effects on the caching performances. Moreover, we compare several caching schemes and discuss their pros and cons. We further present a detailed and in-depth discussion on the caching process, which can be delineated into four phases including content request, exploration, delivery and update. For each phase, we identify different issues and review related works in addressing these issues. Finally, we present a number of challenges faced by current mobile edge caching architectures and techniques for further studies.