Open problem: Energy-and time-efficient dynamic drone path planning for post-disaster network servicing

International audienceWhen a disaster strikes, the telecommunications infrastructure gets damaged making rescue operations more challenging. Connecting first responders through flying base stations (i.e. drone mounted LTE (Long-Term Evolution) femtocell base station) presents a promising alternative to support infrastructure failure during disasters [1]. The drone can travel the area and communicate with ground mobile devices, such as smartphones, and serves as flying data link to share information between survivors and rescuers. Problem statement. We would like to submit the following open problem to the community. Given the position of the ground mobile devices to serve, the problem presented here is about the dynamic drone path planning. As the drone autonomy is very limited and due to the high cost of drone mounted base station, the goal of this problem is to determine the best energy-efficient and minimum-time path to travel the area as fast as possible while still remaining in range of each survivor long enough to assure full servicing