5.3 - Using LTE-networks for UAS-communication
- Event
- etc2016 - 36. European Telemetry and Test Conference
2016-05-10 - 2016-05-12
Nürnberg, Germany - Chapter
- 5. Data Links
- Author(s)
- F. Maiwald, A. Schulte - Institute of Flight Systems, Universität der Bundeswehr München, Neubiberg (Germany)
- Pages
- 166 - 175
- DOI
- 10.5162/etc2016/5.3
- ISBN
- 978-3-9816876-2-0
- Price
- free
Abstract
This article discusses the usage of Long-Term Evolution (LTE) as IP-datalink for one or multiple micro unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). LTE offers robust coding schemes as well as very high sensitivity of receivers. In environments of highly limited transmit power, LTE therefore promises much better coverage in comparison to commercially applied UAS-datalinks like Wi-Fi or Lightbridge (DJI). Within this article, two commercial LTE-networks are evaluated and necessary IT-infrastructure for communication with UAS is specified. We also describe the integration of our multicopter-UAS into a commercial LTE-network. Thereby we developed a Linux-based tablet solution for guidance of our UAS via LTE. This includes the transmission of a live-video stream from our UAS to our tablet via LTE. In the contribution, we present the results of flight experiments we conducted at our testing site. The experiments show that guidance of small drones (including transmission of telemetry and sensor data) via public LTE infrastructure is feasible. Quantitative performance measurements will be presented in the paper. Future work comprises the setup of an own LTE-network and the guidance of multiple UAS via public LTE as well as via an own LTE-network.