An UAV-based Experimental Setup for Propagation Characterization in Urban Environment
This provides a tool for researchers and engineers to study urban wireless channels, but it is incremental as it adapts existing measurement techniques to a UAV platform.
The authors developed a UAV-based measurement system with millimeter-wave and ultra wideband transceivers to characterize 3D wireless propagation in urban environments, enabling flexible drone positioning from ground to rooftop levels for channel analysis.
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.