Overview:
The world has witnessed the rapid development of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) due to the plethora of its multi-purpose applications. As the usability and attraction of UAVs are growing day by day for various types of applications such as smart transportation, e-healthcare, traffic management, waste management, smart metering, and autonomous vehicles, their vulnerability towards various kinds of emerging threats, especially cyber-attacks is also increasing. Therefore, there is a critical need for securing UAV networks and making them resilient enough to mitigate cyber-attacks. The next generation of software development and data analytics are acting as countermeasures to thwart attacks against UAV networks. Most practical applications of UAVs would generally require a swarm of many drones rather than a single drone. Proper management, cooperation, and autonomy of such swarms would require various software-based Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning algorithms. One method that has achieved substantial attractiveness is Software-Defined Networking (SDN)-based software development and data analytics solutions. SDN provides agility and is capable of designing policy-driven network supervision and enabling network automation. Next-generation UAVs are becoming an important part of 5G and IoT, and expected to play a crucial role in enabling more functional diversity for wireless communications. UAV operations utilizing the forthcoming tangible internet-based environment and low-latency 5G networks can help resolve the real time issues. Furthermore, the utilization of SDN, Intent-based Networking (IBN), and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) can solve the issue of dynamic network management.
This special section aims to explore application-specific UAV platforms that employ software-based novel techniques and data analytics for new applications that are both scalable and secure. In light of the security threats associated with UAVs, researchers are welcome to discuss the recent advancements related to security vulnerabilities, software-enabled countermeasures, recent trends, challenges and future research directions for secure UAV networks. The special section also lays emphasis on software-based solutions related to the addition of UAVs in the IoT environment by considering distinctive traits of related cutting-edge technologies. We solicit articles that introduce novel frameworks, methodologies, research directions, and strategies to resolve challenges associated with secure UAV networks.
Topics:
The topics of interest are:
Submission Guidelines:
New papers, or extended versions of papers presented at related conferences, are welcome. Submissions must not be currently under review for publication elsewhere. Conference papers may be submitted only if they are substantially extended (more than 50%), and must be referenced. All submitted papers will be peer-reviewed using the normal standards of CAEE, and accepted based on quality, originality, novelty, and relevance to the theme of the special section. By submitting a paper to this issue, the authors agree to referee one paper (if asked) within the time frame of the special issue.
Before submission, authors should carefully read the Guide for Authors available at
https://www.elsevier.com/journals/computers-and-electrical-engineering/0045-7906/guide-for-authors
Authors should submit their papers through the journal's web submission tool at https://www.editorialmanager.com/compeleceng/default.aspx by selecting “VSI-suav” under the “Issues” tab.
For additional questions, contact the Main Guest Editor.
Schedule:
Submission of manuscript: August 31, 2021
First notification: November 10, 2021
Submission of revised manuscript: December 15, 2021
Notification of the re-review: January 20, 2022
Final notification: February 10, 2022
Final paper due: March 15, 2022
Publication: July 30 2022
Guest Editors:
Bhisham Sharma, Ph.D. (Managing Guest Editor)
Chitkara University School of Engineering and Technology,
Chitkara University, Himachal Pradesh, India
Personal Email: [email protected]
University Email: [email protected]
Deepika Koundal, Ph.D.
Department of Virtualization, School of Computer Science,
University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun, India
Email: [email protected]
Rabie A. Ramadan, Ph.D.
Computer Engineering Department,
Cairo University, Egypt
Email: [email protected]
Guest editors' bios:
Bhisham Sharma
Bhisham Sharma received a Ph.D. in Computer Science & Engineering from the PEC University of Technology (Formerly Punjab Engineering College), Chandigarh, India. He is currently working as an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Chitkara University, Himachal Pradesh, India. He is also working as a member of Chitkara University Research & Innovation Network (CURIN). He is having 10 years of teaching and research experience at various reputed Universities in India. He has received the Excellence Award for publishing research papers with the highest H-index is given by Chitkara University in 2020, 2021. He is currently serving as an associate editor for the International Journal of Communication Systems (Wiley), IET Networks (Wiley), and IET Wireless Sensor Systems (Wiley). He is also a reviewer for more than 20 journals such as Future Generation Computing Systems, IEEE Access, Computer Networks, Frontier of Computer Science, International Journal of Communication Systems, IEEE Transactions on Reliability, and so on. His research interests include Mobile Computing, Wireless Communication, Wireless Sensor Networks, Wireless Mesh Networks, Next Generation Networking, Network Security, Internet of Things, UAV, and Edge/Fog Computing in which he has published over 40 research papers in reputed SCI and Scopus indexed journals, international conferences, and book chapters.
Deepika Koundal
Deepika Koundal is currently associated with the University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun. She is having 12 years of teaching and research experience at various reputed Universities in India. She received her B.Tech. Degree in Computer Science and Engineering from Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra, Haryana, India, and subsequently her M.E. and Ph.D. Degrees in Computer Science & Engineering from UIET, Panjab University, Chandigarh, India. Her Ph.D. thesis is focused on the Automated delineation of thyroid nodules in Ultrasound Images. She also received recognition and an honorary membership from the Neutrosophic Science Association from the University of Mexico for her outstanding publication in the Applied Soft Computing Journal. She has published more than 35 research articles in reputed SCI and Scopus indexed journals, conferences, and two books.
Rabie A. Ramadan
Rabie A. Ramadan is an associate professor at the Computer Engineering Department, Cairo University. He got his Ph.D. from Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX, USA, in 2007. His research interest is in the fields of Internet of Things (IoT), Mobile Computing, Software Engineering, Robotics, and Computational Intelligence. He has more than 250 papers published in these fields. He also has industrial experience as the executive manager for a software development center at Hail University. He worked as the software consultant at “Ibda” and “Smartec” companies. He worked at Bank of America Securities, Dallas, TX, USA, for three years as a software developer and researcher. He currently leads three research groups in the fields of IoT, Software Engineering, and Computational Intelligence. He has organized several conferences as the general chair. He also served as a guest editor for many of the reputed journals.