Abstract
High-throughput unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communication may unleash the true potential of novel applications for aerial vehicles but also represents a threat for cellular networks due to the high levels of generated interference. In this article, we investigate how a beamforming system installed on board a UAV can be efficiently used to ensure high-throughput uplink UAV communications with minimum impact on the services provided to users on the ground. We study two potential benefits of beamforming, namely, spatial filtering of interference and load balancing, considering different beam switching methodologies. Our analysis is based on system-level simulations followed by a series of measurement campaigns in live Long-Term Evolution (LTE) networks. Our results show that using UAV-side beamforming has a great potential to increase uplink throughput of a UAV while mitigating interference. When beamforming is used, even up to twice as many UAVs may be served within a network compared with UAVs using omni-directional antennas, assuming a constant uplink throughput target. However, to fully exploit the potential of beamforming, a standardized solution ensuring alignment between network operators and UAV manufacturers is required.
Highlights
Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communications have shown potential to enable a plethora of new services, such as delivery of goods or infrastructure inspection [1]
SCENARIO 1 - SPATIAL FILTERING OF INTERFERENCE First, the focus is on spatial filtering of uplink interference using beamforming as described in Section II and labeled as Scenario 1
The slightly lower average interference over thermal noise (IoT) levels in the case of Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP)-based beam switching are a result of the uplink power control algorithm, as in Equation (1), where path loss is estimated based on RSRPest
Summary
Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communications have shown potential to enable a plethora of new services, such as delivery of goods or infrastructure inspection [1]. Reliable and ubiquitous command and control (C2) connectivity everywhere in the air is required to support beyond visual line of sight flights [2]. Cellular networks have been recognized as the most promising wireless technology to serve UAVs [5]. Due to their almost everywhere deployment, as well as favorable signal propagation characteristics at lower frequency bands, cellular networks have been shown to be capable of meeting the requirements imposed by the C2 communication link [6]
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