Mobile Communication Base Station Antenna Measurement Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

Abstract

Traditional base station antenna measurement methods conducted with professional worker climbing towers tend to raise safety and inefficiency concerns in practical application. Designed to address the above problems, this paper proposes an intelligent and fully automatic antenna measurement unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) system for mobile communication base station. Firstly, an antenna database, containing 19,715 images, named UAV-Antenna is constructed by image capturing with the help of UAVs flying around various base stations. Secondly, Mask R-CNN is adopted to train an optimal instance segmentation model on UAV-Antenna. Then, pixel coordinates and threshold are utilized for measuring antenna quantity and separate all antenna data for further measuring. Finally, a least squares method is employed for measuring antenna parameters. Experimental results show that the proposed method can not only satisfy the industry application standards, but also guarantee safety of labors and efficiency of performance.

Software-Defined UAV Networks for 6G Systems: Requirements, Opportunities, Emerging Techniques, Challenges, and Research Directions

“…By carrying communications devices that include antennas, radios, power systems, and wireless AP (WAP), UAVs can serve as WiFi BS [80]. These components enable the UAV to establish connections with other equipment and ground-based networks, thereby expanding the cellular coverage area.…”

“…The process of using UAVs as ABS involves a series of stages that enable the UAV the ability to provide network services and wireless connectivity. In the beginning the UAV launches and soars to a pre-set height and subsequently, it establishes a contact channel with the GCS or other network nodes, like other UAVs or ground-based equipment [80]. In order to maximize the coverage and signal strength of its wireless network, the UAV positions itself at a predetermined spot once the communication link is formed.…”

Unmanned aerial vehicles: Applications, techniques, and challenges as aerial base stations

“…60 A typical AirBS requires a maximum transmit power of 5 W. AirBS deployment is not a single variable function, rather it depends on multiple factors as pointed in section ''Fifth generation cellular networks.'' Deployment can be done by maximizing coverage, 61 data rates, [62][63][64] energy efficiency, [65][66][67][68][69][70] along with optimal path planning. [71][72][73][74] Communication applications need optimum outcome, so the parameters need to be optimized for 5G, 6G, or other applications.…”

“…Deployment of UAVs is a function of three coordinates resulting it as a 3D problem. Tahat et al, 55 Savkin and Huang, 58 Sharafeddine and Islambouli, 59 Chandrasekharan et al, 60 Kang et al, 61 Lai et al, 62 Romero and Leus, 63 Qin et al, 64 Sun and Masouros, 65 Zhai et al, 66 and Li et al 67 have looked deeply into strategizing the deployment of AirBSs for the cellular network. An optimal placement algorithm based on ABC algorithm is discussed in Tahat et al 55 and considered it as a non-convex problem.…”

“…When multiple UAVs are deployed, there must be cooperation among the drones for faster operation. 60 A typical AirBS requires a maximum transmit power of 5 W. AirBS deployment is not a single variable function, rather it depends on multiple factors as pointed in section “Fifth generation cellular networks.” Deployment can be done by maximizing coverage, 61 data rates, 62–64 energy efficiency, 65–70 along with optimal path planning. 71–74 Most of the previous research works have proposed deployment strategies that could optimize a maximum of two factors.…”