Design Guidelines for Cooperative UAV-supported Services and Applications

Internet of Things (IoT) systems have advanced greatly in the past few years, especially with the support of Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions. Numerous AI-supported IoT devices are playing a significant role in providing complex and user-specific smart city services. Given the multitude of heterogeneous wireless networks, the plethora of computer and storage architectures and paradigms, and the abundance of mobile and vehicular IoT devices, true smart city experiences are only attainable through a cooperative intelligent and secure IoT framework. This article provides an extensive study on different cooperative systems and envisions a cooperative solution that supports the integration and collaboration among both centralized and distributed systems, in which intelligent AI-supported IoT devices such as smart UAVs provide support in the data collection, processing and service provisioning process. Moreover, secure and collaborative decentralized solutions such as Blockchain are considered in the service provisioning process to enable enhanced privacy and authentication features for IoT applications. As such, user-specific complex services and applications within smart city environments will be delivered and made available in a timely, secure, and efficient manner.