Marina Barbiroli

Vasilii Semkin, Enrico M. Vitucci, Franco Fuschini et al.

In this work, the results of Ultra-Wideband air-to-ground measurements carried out in a real-world factory environment are presented and discussed. With intelligent in-dustrial deployments in mind, we envision a scenario where the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle can be used as a supplementary tool for factory operation, optimization and control. Measurements address narrow band and wide band characterization of the wireless radio channel, and can be used for link budget calculation, interference studies and time dispersion assessment in real factories, without the usual limitation for both radio terminals to be close to ground. The measurements are performed at different locations and different heights over the 3.1-5.3 GHz band. Some fundamental propagation parameters values are determined vs. distance, height and propagation conditions. The measurements are complemented with, and compared to, conventional ground-to-ground measurements with the same setup. The conducted measurement campaign gives an insight for realizing wireless applications in smart connected factories, including UAV-assisted applications.

Franco Fuschini, Marina Barbiroli, Enrico M. Vitucci et al.

A measurement setup made of millimeter-wave and ultra wideband transceivers mounted on both a customized UAV and a ground station for full 3D wireless propagation analysis is described in this work. The developed system represents a flexible solution for the characterization of wireless channels and especially of urban propagation, as the drone might be easily located almost anywhere from ground level to the buildings rooftop and beyond. The double directional properties of the channel can be achieved by rotating directive antennas at the link ends. Other possible applications in urban contexts include above ground level propagation, outdoor-to-indoor penetration, line-of-sight to non-line-of-sight transition, scattering from buildings and air-to-ground channel characterization for UAV-assisted wireless communications.