A Novel Airborne Self-organising Architecture for 5G+ Networks

TL;DR

This paper introduces a layered architecture for integrating Network Flying Platforms into 5G+ networks, utilizing self-organizing features to optimize placement and enhance coverage and capacity in challenging scenarios.

Contribution

It proposes a novel layered architecture incorporating various types of NFPs and formulates an optimal placement strategy using airborne self-organizing network techniques.

Findings

NFP-LL can serve more UEs with optimized placement

Simulation results demonstrate improved network capacity

Enhanced coverage for hard-to-reach areas

Abstract

Network Flying Platforms (NFPs) such as unmanned aerial vehicles, unmanned balloons or drones flying at low/medium/high altitude can be employed to enhance network coverage and capacity by deploying a swarm of flying platforms that implement novel radio resource management techniques. In this paper, we propose a novel layered architecture where NFPs, of various types and flying at low/medium/high layers in a swarm of flying platforms, are considered as an integrated part of the future cellular networks to inject additional capacity and expand the coverage for exceptional scenarios (sports events, concerts, etc.) and hard-to-reach areas (rural or sparsely populated areas). Successful roll-out of the proposed architecture depends on several factors including, but are not limited to: network optimisation for NFP placement and association, safety operations of NFP for network/equipment security, and reliability for NFP transport and control/signaling mechanisms. In this work, we formulate the optimum placement of NFP at a Lower Layer (LL) by exploiting the airborne Self-organising Network (SON) features. Our initial simulations show the NFP-LL can serve more User Equipment (UE)s using this placement technique.