Entropy-Based Age-Aware Scheduling Strategy for UAV-Assisted IoT Data Transmission

This paper investigates data transmission in an Internet of Things (IoT) network, where multiple devices send environmental data to a remote base station through an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) relay. The UAV serves as an airborne intermediary that collects status information from distributed IoT d...

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Main Authors: Lulu Jing, Hai Wang, Zhen Qin, Peng Zhu
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2025-05-01
Series:Entropy
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/27/6/578
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author Lulu Jing
Hai Wang
Zhen Qin
Peng Zhu
author_facet Lulu Jing
Hai Wang
Zhen Qin
Peng Zhu
author_sort Lulu Jing
collection DOAJ
description This paper investigates data transmission in an Internet of Things (IoT) network, where multiple devices send environmental data to a remote base station through an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) relay. The UAV serves as an airborne intermediary that collects status information from distributed IoT devices (e.g., temperature readings in a real-time forest fire monitoring system) and forwards it to the base station. To capture the impact of data staleness, a novel Age of Information (AoI) and entropy-aware system loss is defined in terms of L-conditional cross-entropy, which quantifies the expected penalty caused by state misestimation. The scheduling problem, which aims to minimize the system loss defined by L-conditional cross-entropy, is formulated as a Restless Multi-Armed Bandit (RMAB) problem. By applying Lagrange relaxation, the objective function is decomposed into tractable sub-problems, enabling a low-complexity, gain-index-based scheduling strategy. Numerical simulations validate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm in reducing the long-term average system loss. In particular, the gain-index-based policy achieves a significant reduction in average penalty compared to random, round-robin, periodic update, and MAX-AoI scheduling strategies, demonstrating its superior performance over these baselines.
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institution Kabale University
issn 1099-4300
language English
publishDate 2025-05-01
publisher MDPI AG
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series Entropy
spelling doaj-art-2fafa36b10d5477883a18f5b356f05b12025-08-20T03:27:14ZengMDPI AGEntropy1099-43002025-05-0127657810.3390/e27060578Entropy-Based Age-Aware Scheduling Strategy for UAV-Assisted IoT Data TransmissionLulu Jing0Hai Wang1Zhen Qin2Peng Zhu3College of Communication Engineering, Army Engineering University of PLA, Nanjing 210000, ChinaCollege of Communication Engineering, Army Engineering University of PLA, Nanjing 210000, ChinaDepartment of Information and Communication, Noncommissioned Officer Academy of PAP, Hangzhou 310000, ChinaCollege of Communication Engineering, Army Engineering University of PLA, Nanjing 210000, ChinaThis paper investigates data transmission in an Internet of Things (IoT) network, where multiple devices send environmental data to a remote base station through an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) relay. The UAV serves as an airborne intermediary that collects status information from distributed IoT devices (e.g., temperature readings in a real-time forest fire monitoring system) and forwards it to the base station. To capture the impact of data staleness, a novel Age of Information (AoI) and entropy-aware system loss is defined in terms of L-conditional cross-entropy, which quantifies the expected penalty caused by state misestimation. The scheduling problem, which aims to minimize the system loss defined by L-conditional cross-entropy, is formulated as a Restless Multi-Armed Bandit (RMAB) problem. By applying Lagrange relaxation, the objective function is decomposed into tractable sub-problems, enabling a low-complexity, gain-index-based scheduling strategy. Numerical simulations validate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm in reducing the long-term average system loss. In particular, the gain-index-based policy achieves a significant reduction in average penalty compared to random, round-robin, periodic update, and MAX-AoI scheduling strategies, demonstrating its superior performance over these baselines.https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/27/6/578unmanned aerial vehicle relayage of informationrestless multi-armed banditl-conditional cross-entropygain-index-based policy
spellingShingle Lulu Jing
Hai Wang
Zhen Qin
Peng Zhu
Entropy-Based Age-Aware Scheduling Strategy for UAV-Assisted IoT Data Transmission
Entropy
unmanned aerial vehicle relay
age of information
restless multi-armed bandit
l-conditional cross-entropy
gain-index-based policy
title Entropy-Based Age-Aware Scheduling Strategy for UAV-Assisted IoT Data Transmission
title_full Entropy-Based Age-Aware Scheduling Strategy for UAV-Assisted IoT Data Transmission
title_fullStr Entropy-Based Age-Aware Scheduling Strategy for UAV-Assisted IoT Data Transmission
title_full_unstemmed Entropy-Based Age-Aware Scheduling Strategy for UAV-Assisted IoT Data Transmission
title_short Entropy-Based Age-Aware Scheduling Strategy for UAV-Assisted IoT Data Transmission
title_sort entropy based age aware scheduling strategy for uav assisted iot data transmission
topic unmanned aerial vehicle relay
age of information
restless multi-armed bandit
l-conditional cross-entropy
gain-index-based policy
url https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/27/6/578
work_keys_str_mv AT lulujing entropybasedageawareschedulingstrategyforuavassistediotdatatransmission
AT haiwang entropybasedageawareschedulingstrategyforuavassistediotdatatransmission
AT zhenqin entropybasedageawareschedulingstrategyforuavassistediotdatatransmission
AT pengzhu entropybasedageawareschedulingstrategyforuavassistediotdatatransmission