Aerial Base Station Placement: A Tutorial Introduction

Abstract

The deployment of aerial base stations (ABSs) mounted onboard unmanned aerial vehicles is emerging as a promising technology to provide connectivity in areas where terrestrial infrastructure is insufficient or absent. This may occur, for example, in remote areas, large events, emergency situations, or areas affected by natural disasters such as wildfires or tsunamis. To successfully materialize this goal, it is required that ABSs are placed at locations in 3D space that ensure a high quality of service to the ground terminals. This article provides a tutorial introduction to this ABS placement problem where the fundamental challenges and trade-offs are first investigated by means of a toy application example. Next, the different approaches in the literature to address the aforementioned challenges in both 2D or 3D space are introduced, and a discussion on adaptive placement is provided. The article is concluded by discussing future research directions.