  Aerial networks, composed of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) acting as Wi-Fi
access points or cellular base stations, are emerging as an interesting
solution to provide on-demand wireless connectivity to users, when there is no
network infrastructure available, or to enhance the network capacity. This
article proposes a traffic-aware topology control solution for aerial networks
that holistically combines the placement of UAVs with a predictive and
centralized routing protocol. The synergy created by the combination of the UAV
placement and routing solutions allows the aerial network to seamlessly update
its topology according to the users' traffic demand, whilst minimizing the
disruption caused by the movement of the UAVs. As a result, the Quality of
Service (QoS) provided to the users is improved. The components of the proposed
solution are described and evaluated individually in this article by means of
simulation and an experimental testbed. The results show that all the
components improve the QoS provided to the users when compared to the
corresponding baseline solutions.
