Implementation and analysis of MultiCode MultiCarrier Code Division Multiple Access (MC–MC CDMA) in IEEE 802.11ah for UAV Swarm communication

Abstract

Utilization of flying platforms like Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is progressively increasing in our daily lives. Key characteristics such as flexibility, mobility and adaptive altitude, make UAVs particularly suitable for application in areas such as crop management, goods delivery, public safety and real-time video surveillance of public places to assist in terrestrial networks. IEEE 802.11ah is a WiFi brand Internet of Things (IoT) technology, with properties of suitable data rates, flexibility in channelization, Multi Input Multi Output (MIMO) capability and low power consumption etc. Compared to the existing wireless technologies, IEEE 802.11ah is a suitable choice in terms of data rate and performance. In this research, MultiCode (MC) MultiCarrier (MC) Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) is incorporated in the Physical (PHY) layer of IEEE 802.11ah to meet the differential requirements of range and throughput of UAV to UAV and UAV to Ground Control Station (GCS) communication links for UAV swarm. Depending upon the nature of data transmitted between the UAVs and GCS, suitable Modulation and Coding Schemes (MCS) are selected for multiple bandwidths. Performance analysis of MC–MC CDMA in IEEE 802.11ah has been performed in Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN). It has been observed that an increase/decrease in the modulation order directly affects data rate, with a compromised performance at higher modulation order.