Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Communication

This book thoroughly covers the prospective use cases, intelligent technologies, layered architectures for RIS-assisted UAV communications, research findings, experimental discoveries, and standardizations . The standard non-intelligent and intelligent approaches especially aimed for RIS-assisted UAV communications will be covered in this book. Additionally, researchers and academicians have lately become interested in improving beamforming/reflection for RIS-assisted UAV networks because of its capacity to boost communication coverage, quality, and privacy by dynamically reflecting the incoming signal. The ability to incorporate intelligence via machine learning techniques adopted in the RIS-assisted UAV communications satisfies the criteria for intelligent, environmentally friendly, and self-sustaining 6G cellular networks, making it a potential candidate to address the limitations of existing wireless technologies. Students and professionals alike will find the issues discussed in this book to be interesting. Security, a massive, ultra-reliable, and low-latency communication systems, reinforcement learning and/or deep learning methods for further intelligent and trained strategies, RIS’s beamforming and order of power scaling, as well as a number of other relevant issues of readers’ concern are described in detail.

Ishtiaq Ahmad (Senior Member, IEEE) is currently researcher at 6G Mobile Research Lab at Czech Technical University in Prague. He received a B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Engineering and Technology, Peshawar, Pakistan, in 2007, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electronic engineering from Inha University, South Korea, in 2014 and 2019, respectively. He is a Senior Lecturer at Electrical Engineering Department, Gomal University, Pakistan since 2008. His research interests include Mobility and Radio Resource Management, AI/ML for 6G systems, public safety and mobile ad-hoc networks, IoT/Edge computing, cellular-V2X technology, maritime and underwater communications, semantic communication, and quantum communication, etc. He was a recipient of the Jungseok International Scholarship for his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees at Inha University due to his excellent academic career. He received the Outstanding Research Award and the Excellent Student Award from Inha University, in 2019, for his excellence in journal publication and outstanding research achievements. He served as a Lead Guest Editor for numerous prestigious IEEE journals and magazines. He is Technical Reviewer of several prestigious Journals/Magazines like IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communication, IEEE Transactions on Communication, IEEE Communication Magazine, IEEE Transaction of Green Communication, IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management, IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society, IEEE Wireless Communication, IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, Elsevier Vehicular Communication, IEEE Access, IEEE Wireless Communication Letters, IEEE Communication Letters, etc. He performed the role of General Chair/ Technical Program Committee of several IEEE Flagship conferences and workshops.

Ramsha Narmeen (Graduate Student Member, IEEE) received the B.S. degree in computer system engineering from the University of Engineering and Technology, Peshawar, Pakistan, in 2015, and the M.S. degree in electronic engineering from Inha University, Incheon, South Korea, in 2019. She is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree with Czech Technical University in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic. She has authored several international journals and IEEE conference papers. Her research interests include applications of machine learning, artificial intelligence, underwater acoustic communication, interference management in 3GPP LTE-A and 5G systems, vehicular technology, and mobile ad-hoc networks.

Zeeshan Kaleem (Senior Member, IEEE) is serving as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Engineering, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM). Prior to that he served COMSATS University Islamabad, Wah Campus. He received his BS from UET Peshawar in 2007. He received MS and Ph.D. in Electronics Engineering from South Korea in 2010 and 2016, respectively. Dr. Zeeshan consecutively received the National Research Productivity Award (RPA) awards from the Pakistan Council of Science and Technology (PSCT) in 2017 and 2018. He won the Higher Education Commission (HEC) Best Innovator Award for the year 2017, and there was a single award all over Pakistan. He is the recipient of the 2021 Top Reviewer Recognition Award for IEEE TRANSACTIONS on VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY. He has published around 100 technical journal papers, book chapters, and conference papers in reputable journals/venues and holds 21 US and Korean Patents and got several research grants as PI from RDI Saudi Arabia and HEC Pakistan.

Zdenek Becvar (Senior Member, IEEE) received M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Telecommunication Engineering from the Czech Technical University in Prague (CTU), Czech Republic in 2005 and 2010, respectively. Now, he is the Full Professor at the same university. From 2006 to 2007 and in 2009, he was with Sitronics R&D centre and with Vodafone R&D center at CTU, respectively. He was on internships at Budapest Politechnic, Hungary (2007), CEA-Leti, France (2013), and EURECOM, France (2016, 2019, 2023). He is recipient of the best paper award at European Wireless 2017, bronze medal at ACM Mobicom App contest 2015, and the Best Editor award from IEEE Wireless Comm. Letters in 2024.

Hina Tabassum (Senior Member, IEEE), received the Ph.D. degree from the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). She is currently an Associate Professor with the Lassonde School of Engineering, York University, Canada, where she joined as an Assistant Professor, in 2018. She is also appointed as a Visiting Faculty at University of Toronto in 2024 and the York Research Chair of 5G/6G-enabled mobility and sensing applications in 2023, for five years. Prior to that, she was a postdoctoral research associate at University of Manitoba, Canada. She has been selected as IEEE ComSoc Distinguished Lecturer (2025-2026). She is listed in the Stanford’s list of the World’s Top Two-Percent Researchers in 2021-2024. She received the Lassonde Innovation Early-Career Researcher Award in 2023 and the N2Women: Rising Stars in Computer Networking and Communications in 2022. She has been recognized as an Exemplary Editor by the IEEE Communications Letters (2020), IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society (IEEE OJCOMS) (2023-2024), and IEEE Transactions on Green Communications and Networking (2023). She was recognized as an Exemplary Reviewer (Top 2% of all reviewers) by IEEE Transactions on Communications in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019, and 2020. She is the Founding Chair of the Special Interest Group on THz communications in IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc)-Radio Communications Committee (RCC). She served as an Associate Editor for IEEE Communications Letters (2019-2023), IEEE OJCOMS (2019-2023), and IEEE Transactions on Green Communications and Networking (2020-2023). Currently, she is also serving as an Area Editor for IEEE OJCOMS and an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Communications, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, and IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials.

Ahmed Alkhayyat received his B.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from AL KUFA University, Najaf, Iraq, in 2007, his M.Sc. degree from the Dehradun Institute of Technology, Dehradun, India, in 2010, and his Ph.D. from Cankaya University, Ankara, Turkey, in 2015. He has actively contributed to organizing several IEEE conferences, workshops, and special sessions. Currently, he serves as the Dean of International Relations and Manager of the World Ranking at the Islamic University, Najaf, Iraq. He is also the Head of the Islamic University Centre for Scientific Research. Committed to community service, Ahmed has served as a reviewer for numerous journals and conferences. His research interests span a broad range of topics, including artificial intelligence (AI) for all fields, 5G, IoT in healthcare systems, security, software-defined networking (SDN), network coding, cognitive radio, efficient-energy routing algorithms, and efficient-energy MAC protocols in cooperative wireless networks and wireless body area networks, as well as cross-layer design for self-organized networks.