2018/04/20 by Giovanni Geraci, Adrián García‐Rodríguez, Geraci, Giovanni +7 · 1 citation
Engineering · #Advanced MIMO Systems Optimization #FOS: Computer and information sciences #FOS: Electrical engineering #Information Theory (cs.IT) #Millimeter-Wave Propagation and Modeling #Signal Processing (eess.SP) #UAV Applications and Optimization #electronic engineering #information engineering
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1804.08489
openalex publication_date 2018/04/20 · openalex created_date 2022/10/01 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The purpose of this article is to bestow the reader with a timely study of\nUAV cellular communications, bridging the gap between the 3GPP standardization\nstatus quo and the more forward-looking research. Special emphasis is placed on\nthe downlink command and control (C&C) channel to aerial users, whose\nreliability is deemed of paramount technological importance for the commercial\nsuccess of UAV cellular communications. Through a realistic side-by-side\ncomparison of two network deployments -- a present-day cellular infrastructure\nversus a next-generation massive MIMO system -- a plurality of key facts are\ncast light upon, with the three main ones summarized as follows: (i) UAV cell\nselection is essentially driven by the secondary lobes of a base station's\nradiation pattern, causing UAVs to associate to far-flung cells; (ii) over a 10\nMHz bandwidth, and for UAV heights of up to 300 m, massive MIMO networks can\nsupport 100 kbps C&C channels in 74% of the cases when the uplink pilots for\nchannel estimation are reused among base station sites, and in 96% of the cases\nwithout pilot reuse across the network; (iii) supporting UAV C&C channels can\nconsiderably affect the performance of ground users on account of severe pilot\ncontamination, unless suitable power control policies are in place.\n