Compared to traditional networking, SDN has better controllability and visibility for network components, which enable better management by using the common controller. In this article, the standard architecture of SDN is enhanced to utilize UAVs as on-demand forwarding switches. The proposed approach can achieve efficient management and fast handovers by decreasing the handover latency, E2E delay, and signaling overheads. The illustrated scenarios will help in understanding the impact of existing handover approaches in the next generation wireless networks, especially the upcoming 5G, which includes small cells, UAVs, UEs, and so on. The simulation study shows that scenarios with both UAVs and small cells perform better than scenarios with only small cells. The results in this article show that the proposed SDNbased handover scenarios perform better than the existing 4G-LTE handover for UAVs.

中文翻译：

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使用无人机的软件定义无线网络中的高效管理和快速切换

与传统网络相比，SDN对网络组件具有更好的可控性和可见性，从而可以通过使用通用控制器进行更好的管理。在本文中，SDN的标准体系结构得到了增强，可以将无人机用作按需转发交换机。所提出的方法可以通过减少切换等待时间，端到端延迟和信令开销来实现高效管理和快速切换。所示场景将有助于理解现有切换方法在下一代无线网络中的影响，尤其是即将到来的5G，其中包括小型小区，UAV，UE等。仿真研究表明，同时具有无人机和小型蜂窝的场景比仅具有小型蜂窝的场景表现更好。