An Overview of 3GPP Release-15 Study on Enhanced LTE Support for Connected Drones

Abstract

Cellular connectivity to low altitude unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has received significant interest recently which has led to a 3GPP study on enhanced LTE support for connected UAVs in Release 15. The objective of the study is to investigate the capability of long-term evolution (LTE) networks for providing connectivity to UAVs. In this article, we provide an overview of the key findings of the 3GPP Release-15 study-item phase. We first introduce UAV connectivity requirements and performance evaluation scenarios defined in the study. We then discuss radio channel models and the key identified challenges of using LTE networks to provide connectivity to UAVs. We summarize potential solutions to address the challenges including interference detection and mitigation techniques, mobility enhancements, and UAV identification. Finally, we also shed light on the key features standardized during the Release-15 work-item phase.

arXiv comment7 pages, 6 figures, submitted for publication

References in corpus (2)

• The Sky Is Not the Limit: LTE for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
• Designing and Implementing Future Aerial Communication Networks

Cited by in corpus (14)

• Uplink Cooperative NOMA for Cellular-Connected UAV
• A Survey on Cellular-connected UAVs: Design Challenges, Enabling 5G/B5G Innovations, and Experimental Advancements
• Cognitive UAV Communication via Joint Maneuver and Power Control
• Tutorial on UAV: A Blue Sky View on Wireless Communication
• Subcarrier-wise Backscatter Communications over Ambient OFDM for Low Power IoT
• Millimeter-Wave for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Networks: Enabling Multi-Beam Multi-Stream Communications
• Machine Learning Empowered Trajectory and Passive Beamforming Design in UAV-RIS Wireless Networks
• A Comprehensive Overview on 5G-and-Beyond Networks with UAVs: From Communications to Sensing and Intelligence
• A Deep Reinforcement Learning Approach to Efficient Drone Mobility Support
• A Survey of Prototype and Experiment for UAV Communications
• Communication and networking technologies for UAVs: A survey
• Energy Efficient Pairing and Power Optimization for NOMA UAV Network under QoS Constraints
• Interference Management in UAV-assisted Integrated Access and Backhaul Cellular Networks
• Modeling and Analysis of Data Harvesting Architecture based on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles