Preventive maintenance of critical infrastructures using 5G networks & drones

The massive deployment of IoT devices, broadband and mission critical services are paving the way for 5G communication networks, which will enable massive capacity, zero delay, elasticity and optimal deployment, enhanced security, privacy by design and connectivity to billions of devices with less predictable traffic patterns. This paper targets a very important and demanding application the Preventive Maintenance as a Service in Critical Infrastructures and more precisely in the energy (electricity and gas) transmission and distribution network that combines the 5G technology with secure IoT and drones flight control. In more details, it addresses the 5G advances at the edge network and proposes a number of VNFs to support surveillance using swarms of drones.