Massive MIMO for Drone Communications: Case Studies and Future Directions

Abstract

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones, are proliferating. Applications, such as surveillance, disaster management, and drone racing, place high requirements on the communication with the drones in terms of throughput, reliability, and latency. The existing wireless technologies, notably Wi-Fi, that are currently used for drone connectivity are limited to short ranges and low-mobility situations. New, scalable technology is needed to meet future demands on long connectivity ranges, support for fast-moving drones, and the possibility to simultaneously communicate with entire swarms of drones. Massive multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO), the main technology component of emerging 5G standards, has the potential to meet these requirements.

To appear in IEEE Access

References in corpus (5)

• The Sky Is Not the Limit: LTE for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
• Performance Characterization of a Real-Time Massive MIMO System with LOS Mobile Channels
• A Telecom Perspective on the Internet of Drones: From LTE-Advanced to 5G
• Efficient DSP and Circuit Architectures for Massive MIMO: State-of-the-Art and Future Directions
• MmWave MU-MIMO for Aerial Networks