Modeling and Performance Analysis of Opportunistic Link Selection For UAV Communication

Area of Science:

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
• Aerospace Engineering
• Telecommunications

Background:

• The widespread adoption of 5G technologies presents significant challenges for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communication due to spectrum scarcity.
• Safe drone operations necessitate dynamic spectrum management solutions that accommodate heterogeneous link types and multi-UAV coordination.
• Existing methods struggle with efficient spectrum allocation in dynamic air-to-ground (A2G) environments.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a synthesized resource allocation and opportunistic link selection (RA-OLS) scheme for dynamic A2G UAV communication.
• To develop technical solutions for a prototype system, including link hopping sequences (LHSs) for collision alleviation and offloaded computation.
• To formulate a mathematical model for RA-OLS throughput in spectrum-dense and spectrum-scarce scenarios.

Main Methods:

• A greedy algorithm-based sub-optimal method for resource allocation.
• Development of link hopping sequences (LHSs) allocated in ground control stations (GCSs).
• Formulation of a mathematical throughput model incorporating an interference factor for primary user protection.
• Sensitivity analysis to evaluate performance under diverse parameters.

Main Results:

• The RA-OLS scheme demonstrates a utilization rate improvement of over 50% compared to static schemes when multiple links are available.
• The proposed throughput model accurately approximates simulated communication in both dense and scarce spectrum environments.
• The RA-OLS scheme facilitates collaborative communication, particularly effective in spectral resource scarcity.

Conclusions:

• The synthesized RA-OLS scheme effectively addresses spectrum scarcity challenges in UAV communication.
• The proposed method enhances spectrum utilization and enables robust, collaborative drone operations.
• The RA-OLS system provides a viable solution for future integrated UAV communication networks.