Wireless Communications with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: Opportunities and Challenges

TL;DR

This paper reviews the potential of UAVs in wireless communications, discussing their advantages, challenges, and key design considerations for deploying flexible, line-of-sight communication links.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of UAV-aided wireless systems, highlighting new opportunities and addressing challenges unique to mobile, energy-constrained UAV platforms.

Findings

UAVs enable rapid deployment of wireless networks.

Line-of-sight links improve communication quality.

Energy constraints pose significant design challenges.

Abstract

Wireless communication systems that include unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) promise to provide cost-effective wireless connectivity for devices without infrastructure coverage. Compared to terrestrial communications or those based on high-altitude platforms (HAPs), on-demand wireless systems with low-altitude UAVs are in general faster to deploy, more flexibly re-configured, and are likely to have better communication channels due to the presence of short-range line-of-sight (LoS) links. However, the utilization of highly mobile and energy-constrained UAVs for wireless communications also introduces many new challenges. In this article, we provide an overview of UAV-aided wireless communications, by introducing the basic networking architecture and main channel characteristics, highlighting the key design considerations as well as the new opportunities to be exploited.