5G network slicing with unmanned aerial vehicles: Taxonomy, survey, and future directions

Abstract With the ever‐expanding rise of network demands and user expectations, the fifth generation (5G) of cellular networks was envisioned to support a plethora of use cases and conflicting user demands. Next to providing traditional connectivity like its previous generations, 5G also promises to be a heterogeneous network connecting humans, vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), smart devices, and more. These challenging expectations proved to be overwhelming for traditional network infrastructures to handle. Network slicing has emerged as a promising solution that can achieve such diverse, taxing, and sometimes conflicting requirements in a dynamic and programmable way. There is no denying that UAVs have attained significant focus and research in recent years, and with 5G already being deployed, UAVs can now exploit the capabilities of the new networks. Extensive research is being taken to integrate UAVs into networks, assisting and improving aspects like latency, coverage, and capacity. Motivated by these facts, this survey distinguishes itself from other works by jointly exploring 5G, network slicing, and UAVs. The main contributions of this article are to showcase how UAVs can assist networks, provide a taxonomy of UAVs in the context of network slicing, and survey works that contribute to network slicing with UAVs. In this article, we present a comprehensive survey on UAVs in the context of network slicing, covering contributions, and state‐of‐the‐art literature. We discuss network slicing in‐depth, focusing especially on the three major slices: enhanced Mobile BroadBand, massive machine type communications, and ultra‐reliable low‐latency communications. We provide an overview of 5G enablers, including software‐defined networking and network function virtualization. We cover UAVs and identify their roles in networks as both users and assistants. Furthermore, this survey provides insight into open issues and future research directions related to network slicing and UAVs before concluding.