# Robust Cellular Communications for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in Maritime Search and Rescue

## TL;DR

This paper presents a reliable LTE-based communication system for UAV maritime search and rescue, employing resource-guaranteed scheduling to ensure low latency and high reliability in dynamic environments.

## Contribution

It introduces a novel resource-guaranteed LTE scheduling scheme for UAVs, improving latency and reliability in maritime SAR operations.

## Key findings

- Latency reduced to 6 ms on average
- Achieved 99.9th percentile latency of 10 ms
- System meets UAV communication requirements

## Abstract

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) are a promising technology for fast, large scale survey operations such as maritime search and rescue (SAR). However, providing reliable communications over long distances remains a challenge. Cellular technology such as Long Term Evolution (LTE) is designed to perform well in the presence of fast-moving clients and highly dynamic channel conditions. Yet, its generic medium access mechanisms make it hard to support low-latency uplink traffic, which is needed for real-time command and control and similar applications. In this paper, we introduce an unmanned aerial system for maritime SAR, supported via an LTE data link. To mitigate drawbacks in uplink channel access, we develop a resource-guaranteed scheme based on persistent scheduling, using an open-source LTE stack. The approach is evaluated with a laboratory setup using software-defined radio modules. Measurements are taken on the application layer, using real-world telemetry data generated by an autopilot system in the presence of high bandwidth background traffic. Evaluations demonstrate that our system fulfills UAV requirements in terms of latency and reliability. Latency is further reduced to 6 ms on average and a 99.9th percentile of 10 ms by application-aware overprovisioning for mission-critical traffic and users.