Abstract
Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) antenna tracking system is an electromechanical component designed to track and steer the signal beams from the ground control station (GCS) to the airborne platform for optimum signal alignment. In a tracking system, an antenna continuously tracks a moving target and records their position. A UAV tracking antenna system is susceptible to signal loss if omnidirectional antenna is deployed as the preferred design. Therefore, to achieve longer UAV distance communication, there is a need for directional high gain antenna. From design principle, directional antennas are known to focus their signal energy in a particular direction viewed from their radiation pattern which is concentrated in a particular azimuth direction. Unfortunately, a directional antenna is limited by angle, thus, it must always be directed to the target. The other limitation of a UAV mechanical beam steering system is that the system is expensive to maintain and with low reliability. To solve this problem, we are proposing the use of MIMO technology as a readily available technology for UAV beyond line of sight technology. Although UAV antenna tracking is domiciled in the mechanical beam steering arrangement, this study shows that this native technology could be usurped by MIMO beam forming.
Highlights
During the last two decades, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has been deployed to perform high risky operations where deploying humans presents great danger to their health notably in fire-fighting [1,2], chemical spraying [3,4,5], search and rescue missions [5,6], disaster network communication [7,8] and surveillance operations [9]
Reference [104] focused their research on the performance analysis for time difference of arrival (TDOA) localization using UAVs with flight disturbances, and reference [105] deployed the use of particle filtering for three-dimensional TDoA-based positioning using four anchor nodes driven by statistical models to determine the UAV localization
Y = hx + n y⃗ = hx + n denotes the received signal adseRnioctiaesn tihf ethreerceeiisvceldeasrigLnoaSl ovvreeRccttaooyrr,l,ehihgihsisitfhthteheecrchehaaannrneneselclcacototeeefrfifefcirciseiewnnthtwiwchhhiwcichihllccaraennsubblete modeled as Rician if there is clear line of sight (LoS) or Rayleigh if there are scatterers which will result in multi-paths, x is the information symbol that the UAV ground control station (GCS) intends to transmits to the airborne platform, and n is the noise vector normally denoted as additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN)
Summary
During the last two decades, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has been deployed to perform high risky operations where deploying humans presents great danger to their health notably in fire-fighting [1,2], chemical spraying [3,4,5], search and rescue missions [5,6], disaster network communication [7,8] and surveillance operations [9]. The tracking unit control relies on positioning sensors, such as gyroscope and inertial measurement unit (IMU), for guidance [27] This type of control mechanism is suitable for a land to mobile satellite services and it is not affected by shadowing and blocking signal components. RF micro-electrical mechanical systems (MEMs) phase shifters are available for passive high-performance antenna arrays for Ka-band (26–40 GHz) applications that exhibit superior performance to solid-state alternatives. The electrical steering system has more considerable tracking speed, acceleration, and mean time between failure (MTBF) over its mechanical counterpart. Buoyed by their compact structure, they are more suitable to be installed in mini structures and have lower production losses [29]. Some other techniques to achieve electronic/electrical beam steering include active phased arrays, passive phased arrays, and switched multiple-beam antennas [30]
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