A Resilient and Energy-Efficient Smart Metering Infrastructure Utilizing a Self-Organizing UAV Swarm
Keywords:
Smart City, UAV Swarm, Smart Metering, Self-Organizing Network, Failure Recovery, System Design, Energy ConsumptionAbstract
The effective and secure gathering of energy consumption data has become essential as smart cities develop. High costs, safety hazards, and data latency are some of the enduring issues that traditional smart metering infrastructures (SMIs), which depend on manual data acquisition, must deal with. In this paper, a novel SMI architecture for autonomous, energy-efficient, and resilient smart meter data collection is presented, utilizing a self-organizing swarm of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). To guarantee system dependability, our design integrates a hierarchical drone network with leader and slave drones, backed by strong communication protocols and dynamic task reallocation mechanisms. The system's scalability, low latency, and fault tolerance are confirmed by means of comprehensive OPNET-based simulations and real-world use-case modelling, which includes COVID-19 testing applications. To extend operational lifespan, the suggested system also incorporates a battery sizing strategy and an energy consumption model. The findings show that UAV swarms can significantly improve SMI performance and resilience, which is a big step toward smarter and greener urban infrastructure.
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