An Energy-Aware Framework for Drone Charging Management in FANETs

Abstract

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones, have rapidly gained interest across a wide range of applications due to their versatility, mobility, and ability to operate in inaccessible or hazardous environments. Their adoption has expanded across a wide variety of application domains, including environmental monitoring, precision agriculture, disaster management, military surveillance, and emergency communications. These drones typically use high-capacity batteries, such as lithium batteries, which allow for flight times of 20 to 40 minutes. This limited battery capacity significantly constrains mission duration, operational range, and overall system reliability, especially in long-term or large-scale deployments such as Flying Ad Hoc Networks (FANETs). In this paper, a framework to manage energy and drone charging is presented, highlighting the energy issues related to the charging stations inside the area where the drones perform the specific mission. The proposed framework analyzes energy consumption patterns, charging requirements, and the impact of charging station placement on mission continuity.