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. 2021 Dec 23;22(1):65.
doi: 10.3390/s22010065.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Propagation Channel over Vegetation and Lake Areas: First- and Second-Order Statistical Analysis

Deyvid L Leite  1 , Pablo Javier Alsina  1 , Millena M de Medeiros Campos  1 , Vicente A de Sousa Jr  1 , Alvaro A M de Medeiros  2
Affiliations

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Propagation Channel over Vegetation and Lake Areas: First- and Second-Order Statistical Analysis

Deyvid L Leite et al. Sensors (Basel). .

Abstract

The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) to provide services such as the Internet, goods delivery, and air taxis has become a reality in recent years. The use of these aircraft requires a secure communication between the control station and the UAV, which demands the characterization of the communication channel. This paper aims to present a measurement setup using an unmanned aircraft to acquire data for the characterization of the radio frequency channel in a propagation environment with particular vegetation (Caatinga) and a lake. This paper presents the following contributions: identification of the communication channel model that best describes the characteristics of communication; characterization of the effects of large-scale fading, such as path loss and log-normal shadowing; characterization of small-scale fading (multipath and Doppler); and estimation of the aircraft speed from the identified Doppler frequency.

Keywords: Doppler; UAV; channel; fading; multipath; shadowing.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Figure A1
Figure A1
XBee antenna lobe.
Figure A2
Figure A2
Illustration of gain composition of the BS and drone antennas.
Figure 1
Figure 1
Scheme of reception and storage of the wireless signal measurement data.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Equipment used in measurement campaigns. (a) UAV with XBee and power battery modules. (b) Base station for collecting measurement data.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Lake photos taken at different heights. (a) Photo taken with UAV over the lake at a height of 8 m. (b) Photo taken with UAV over the lake at a height of 80 m. (c) Showing the base station (BS) and the lake area.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Caatinga biome region. (a) Flight region over the Caatinga vegetation. (b) Area of the flight over the Caatinga vegetation.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Mixed scenario. (a) Mixed scenario photo taken by the UAV at 80 m. (b) Full view of the mixed scenario.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Path loss of flights over the lake.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Path loss of flights over the Caatinga.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Path loss of flights over the mixed region.
Figure 9
Figure 9
Estimated CDFs over the lake for the same height. (a) CDFs over the lake at 8 m. (b) CDFs over the lake at 80 m.
Figure 10
Figure 10
Estimation of CDFs over the lake at the same speed. (a) CDFs over the lake at 1 km/h. (b) CDFs over the lake at 3 km/h.
Figure 11
Figure 11
Estimation of CDFs for the Caatinga and Mixed environments. (a) CDFs for the Caatinga region. (b) CDFs for mixed region.
Figure 12
Figure 12
Doppler frequency estimation. (a) Doppler frequency for Lake region. (b) Doppler frequency for Caatinga and Mixed regions.
Figure 13
Figure 13
Estimated speeds. (a) Estimated speeds for Lake region. (b) Estimated speeds for the Caatinga and Mixed regions.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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