Guest Editorial Special Issue on Aerial Computing for the Internet of Things (IoT)

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a major driving force for future sixth-generation (6G) wireless systems. With the emergence of various novel IoT applications, more data should be collected and transmitted. However, IoT devices are constrained by battery, transmit power, and processing capacity. Featured by line-of-sight communication links, favorable channels, and better coverage, aerial access networks have been proposed to facilitate data transmission from IoT devices. In parallel, by shifting the computing and storage resources from the cloud to the edge of the network, edge computing [e.g., fog and mobile-edge computing (MEC)] can better support various computing-intensive and low-latency IoT applications. The integration of aerial access networks and edge computing, so-called aerial computing, is anticipated to provide not only traditional communication services but also advanced services for the IoT on a global scale.