In recent years, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been used to extend the Internet of things (IoT) framework owing to their vast applications, monitoring and surveillance capability, ubiquity, and mobility. To support IoT requirements, UAVs must be capable of aggregating, processing, and transmitting data in real-time basis. As not only the number of IoT devices but also the amount of data to be collected is increased, data aggregation is of great importance. Recently, the UAV can also function as a mobile edge computing server in association with aerial data aggregation. This paper is the first to survey the various aspects and techniques of UAV-based aerial data aggregation for IoT networks. After addressing key design issues, we review the existing data aggregation techniques along with possible future direction. They are then compared with each other in terms of major operational features, performance characteristics, advantages, and limitations. Open issues and research challenges are also discussed with possible solution approaches.

近年来，无人机（UAV）因其广泛的应用、监控能力、普遍性和移动性而被用来扩展物联网（IoT）框架。为了支持物联网要求，无人机必须能够实时聚合、处理和传输数据。随着物联网设备数量的增加以及需要收集的数据量的增加，数据聚合变得非常重要。最近，无人机还可以充当与航空数据聚合相关的移动边缘计算服务器。本文首次调查了物联网网络中基于无人机的航空数据聚合的各个方面和技术。解决关键设计问题后，我们回顾现有的数据聚合技术以及未来可能的方向。然后对它们的主要操作特征、性能特征、优点和局限性进行比较。还讨论了未决问题和研究挑战以及可能的解决方法。