Anchor-and-Connect: Robotic Aerial Base Stations Transforming 6G Infrastructure

TL;DR

This paper introduces robotic aerial base stations (RABSs) with energy-neutral anchoring that can perch on urban landforms, enabling longer service times and improved network capacity compared to traditional hovering drones.

Contribution

The paper proposes a novel RABS concept with energy-efficient anchoring, detailed hardware and workflow components, and compares its advantages with existing aerial and terrestrial base stations.

Findings

RABS can provide several hours of continuous connectivity.

Anchoring significantly extends drone operational endurance.

Case studies show RABS outperform hovering-based ABSs in capacity and longevity.

Abstract

Despite the significant attention that aerial base stations (ABSs) have received recently, their practical implementation is severely weakened by their limited endurance due to the battery constraints of drones. To overcome this fundamental limitation and barrier for wider adoption, we propose the concept of robotic aerial base stations (RABSs) that are equipped with energy-neutral anchoring end-effectors able to autonomously grasp or perch on tall urban landforms. Thanks to the energy-efficient anchoring operation, RABSs could offer seamless wireless connectivity for multiple hours compared to minutes of the typical hovering-based ABSs. Therefore, the prolonged service capabilities of RABSs allowing them to integrate into the radio access network and augment the network capacity where and when needed. To set the scene, we discuss the key components of the proposed RABS concept including hardware, workflow, communication considerations, and regulation issues. Then, the advantages of RABSs are highlighted which is followed by case studies that compare RABSs with terrestrial micro BSs and other types of non-terrestrial communication infrastructure, such as hovering-based, tethered, and laser-powered ABSs.