Reshaping Cellular Networks for the Sky: Major Factors and Feasibility

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the feasibility of using existing cellular networks to support drone operations, analyzing factors like base station height, antenna patterns, and interference to determine coverage potential.

Contribution

It introduces an analytical framework incorporating various environmental and technical factors to assess drone coverage, highlighting the limitations of ultra-dense networks for aerial users.

Findings

Carefully designed networks can manage interference for drones.

Increasing network density does not significantly improve drone coverage.

Ultra-dense networks are unsuitable for supporting aerial users.

Abstract

This paper studies the feasibility of supporting drone operations using existent cellular infrastructure. We propose an analytical framework that includes the effects of base station (BS) height and antenna radiation pattern, drone antenna directivity and various propagation environments. With this framework, we derive an exact expression for the coverage probability of ground and drone users through a practical cell association strategy. Our results show that a carefully designed network can control the radiated interference that is received by the drones, and therefore guarantees a satisfactory quality of service. Moreover, as the network density grows the increasing level of interference can be partially managed by lowering the drone flying altitude. However, even at optimal conditions the drone coverage performance converges to zero considerably fast, suggesting that ultra-dense networks might be poor candidates for serving aerial users.