Abstract
In this article we presented an overview of UASs for civil applications focusing on the communication component. We identified several available communication technologies for UAVs, their constraints, and also protocols available for implementing the remote operation of the vehicles. As an attractive solution for the A2G communication link for UAVs, we discussed the potential of mobile networks with their fully deployed infrastructures, wide radio coverage, high throughputs, reduced latencies, and large availability of radio modems. We described how a UAS can be implemented in a flexible and modular approach that allows it to rely on one or several wireless (UAVs and GCSs) and wired (GCSs) technologies. Despite the advantages of a system based on cellular and IP networks, there are problems that must be dealt with, namely, possible loss of radio coverage, presence of NAT, delay, jitter, and packet loss. Following the proposed architecture, we implemented an UAS and conducted some flight tests, which showed that the operation of the vehicles in semi-automatic or fully-automatic modes is feasible. It is expected that future enhancements for 4G networks and evolution to 5G will benefit UAV communications even further with lower latencies, higher throughput, and higher reliability.
Highlights
The concept was born within military use, in recent years we have witnessed an impressive development of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for civil and academic applications
We present a flexible architecture for a multi-UAV, multi-operator system which can make use of third and fourth generation (3G/4G) wireless networks and describe some results obtained from experimental tests using our unmanned aerial system (UAS) implementation
We identified several available communication technologies for UAVs, their constraints and protocols available for implementing the remote operation of the vehicles
Summary
The concept was born within military use, in recent years we have witnessed an impressive development of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for civil and academic applications. Driving this growth is the myriad of possible scenarios where this technology can be deployed, such as: fire detection, search and rescue operations, surveillance, police operations, building and engineering inspections, aerial photography and video for post-disaster assessment, agricultural monitoring, remote detection (radiation, chemical, electromagnetic), weather services, UAV photogrammetry, airborne relay networks, and more [1]. Different solutions have been studied and implemented, as discussed in [2], but most suffer from either a restricted operational range or a high implementation complexity. We comment on potential improvements that can be expected from future cellular networks in this context
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