Mobile Network-Connected Drones: Field Trials, Simulations, and Design Insights

Drones are increasingly used in a wide variety of industries and services and are delivering profound socioeconomic benefits. Technology needs to be in place to ensure the safe operation and management of this growing fleet of drones. In the past decades, mobile networks have connected tens of billions of devices on the ground and are now ready to connect drones flying in the sky. In this article, we share some of our findings concerning cellular connectivity for low-altitude drones. We first present and analyze field measurement data collected during drone flights in a commercial LTE network. We then present simulation results to shed light on the performance of a network when it is serving many drones simultaneously over a wide area. The results, analysis, and design insights presented here help enhance understanding of the applicability of and performance concerns related to providing mobile connectivity for lowaltitude drones.