Backhaul For Low-Altitude UAVs in Urban Environments

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the performance of UAV backhaul links in urban environments using stochastic geometry, providing insights into success probability and data rates for LTE and millimeter-wave backhauls.

Contribution

It offers analytical expressions for UAV backhaul success probability and data rate, highlighting the effects of ground station density and colocations with existing networks.

Findings

Diminishing returns with increased ground station density.

Colocation with existing base stations benefits LTE backhaul performance.

Analytical models for success probability and data rate in UAV backhaul links.

Abstract

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) acting as access points in cellular networks require wireless backhauls to the core network. In this paper we employ stochastic geometry to carry out an analysis of the UAV backhaul performance that can be achieved with a network of dedicated ground stations. We provide analytical expressions for the probability of successfully establishing a backhaul and the expected data rate over the backhaul link, given either an LTE or a millimeter-wave backhaul. We demonstrate that increasing the density of the ground station network gives diminishing returns on the performance of the UAV backhaul, and that for an LTE backhaul the ground stations can benefit from being colocated with an existing base station network.