Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have found numerous applications and are expected to bring fertile business opportunities in the next decade. Among various enabling technologies for UAVs, wireless communication is essential and has drawn significantly growing attention in recent years. Compared to the conventional terrestrial communications, UAVs’ communications face new challenges due to their high altitude above the ground and great flexibility of movement in the 3-D space. Several critical issues arise, including the line-of-sight (LoS) dominant UAV-ground channels and induced strong aerial-terrestrial network interference, the distinct communication quality-of-service (QoS) requirements for UAV control messages versus payload data, the stringent constraints imposed by the size, weight, and power (SWAP) limitations of UAVs, as well as the exploitation of the new design degree of freedom (DoF) brought by the highly controllable 3-D UAV mobility. In this article, we give a tutorial overview of the recent advances in UAV communications to address the above issues, with an emphasis on how to integrate UAVs into the forthcoming fifth-generation (5G) and future cellular networks. In particular, we partition our discussion into two promising research and application frameworks of UAV communications, namely UAV-assisted wireless communications and cellular-connected UAVs, where UAVs are integrated into the network as new aerial communication platforms and users, respectively. Furthermore, we point out promising directions for future research.

Accessing From the Sky: A Tutorial on UAV Communications for 5G and Beyond

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have attracted great interest in rapid deployment for both civil and military applications. UAV communication has its own distinctive channel characteristics compared to the widely used cellular or satellite systems. Accurate channel characterization is crucial for the performance optimization and design of efficient UAV communication. However, several challenges exist in UAV channel modeling. For example, the propagation characteristics of UAV channels are under explored for spatial and temporal variations in non–stationary channels. Additionally, airframe shadowing has not yet been investigated for small size rotary UAVs. This paper provides an extensive survey of the measurement methods proposed for UAV channel modeling that use low altitude platforms and discusses various channel characterization efforts. We also review from a contemporary perspective of UAV channel modeling approaches, and outline future research challenges in this domain.

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A Survey of Channel Modeling for UAV Communications

In recent years, there has been a dramatic increase in the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), particularly for small UAVs, due to their affordable prices, wide availability, and relative ease of operability. Existing and future applications of UAVs include remote surveillance and monitoring, relief operations, package delivery, and communication backhaul infrastructure. Additionally, UAVs are envisioned as an important component of 5G wireless technology and beyond. The unique application scenarios for UAVs necessitate accurate air-to-ground (AG) propagation channel models for designing and evaluating UAV communication links for control/non-payload as well as payload data transmissions. These AG propagation models have not been investigated in detail, relative to terrestrial propagation models. In this paper, a comprehensive survey is provided on available AG channel measurement campaigns, large and small scale fading channel models, their limitations, and future research directions for UAV communication scenarios.

A Survey of Air-to-Ground Propagation Channel Modeling for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

The scalable video coding (SVC) standard as an extension of H.264/AVC allows efficient, standard-based temporal, spatial, and quality scalability of video bit streams. Scalability of a video bit stream allows for media bit rate as well as for device capability adaptation. Moreover, adaptation of the bit rate of a video signal is a desirable key feature, if limitation in network resources, mostly characterized by throughput variations, varying delay or transmission errors, need to be considered. Typically, in mobile networks the throughput, delay and errors of a connection (link) depend on the current reception conditions, which are largely influenced by a number of physical factors. In order to cope with the typically varying characteristics of mobile communication channels in unicast, multicast, or broadcast services, different methods for increasing robustness and achieving quality of service are desirable. We will give an overview of SVC and its relation to mobile delivery methods. Furthermore, innovative use cases are introduced which apply SVC in mobile networks.

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Mobile Video Transmission Using Scalable Video Coding

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have found numerous applications and are expected to bring fertile business opportunities in the next decade. Among various enabling technologies for UAVs, wireless communication is essential and has drawn significantly growing attention in recent years. Compared to the conventional terrestrial communications, UAVs' communications face new challenges due to their high altitude above the ground and great flexibility of movement in the three-dimensional (3D) space. Several critical issues arise, including the line-of-sight (LoS) dominant UAV-ground channels and resultant strong aerial-terrestrial network interference, the distinct communication quality of service (QoS) requirements for UAV control messages versus payload data, the stringent constraints imposed by the size, weight and power (SWAP) limitations of UAVs, as well as the exploitation of the new design degree of freedom (DoF) brought by the highly controllable 3D UAV mobility. In this paper, we give a tutorial overview of the recent advances in UAV communications to address the above issues, with an emphasis on how to integrate UAVs into the forthcoming fifth-generation (5G) and future cellular networks. In particular, we partition our discussions into two promising research and application frameworks of UAV communications, namely UAV-assisted wireless communications and cellular-connected UAVs,where UAVs serve as aerial communication platforms and users, respectively. Furthermore, we point out promising directions for future research and investigation.

Accessing From The Sky: A Tutorial on UAV Communications for 5G and Beyond

A study on the design, simulation and characterization of a reconfigurable terahertz (THz) filter, composed of two frequency-selective surfaces (FSSs) with applications on sensor devices in general and highly sensitive stress sensors, is presented in this paper. Using the developed theoretical model, we found out that by careful tuning the wire parameters, it is possible to control the filter sensitivity and also the energy transmission and reflection that passes through the structure. Numerical modelling of both the mechanical and electromagnetic components (using the elasticity equation and Maxwell’s equations, respectively) has been undertaken for two types of the device assemblies based on different thermoplastic polymers transparent to the THz radiation, namely: high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), operating in a THz window from 395 to 455 GHz. The numerical results allowed us to characterize the relation between the reflectance/transmittance and the amount of force required to obtain a specific frequency shift along that window. It was found that the device assembled with HDPE presents a more linear response and it is able to pass from a full transparency to almost full opacity using only its linear operating zone. Due to its characteristics, this THz filter might be an interesting solution not only for THz sensors based on reconfigurable filters but also for optical modulators for the THz domain.

Design of a Reconfigurable THz Filter Based on Metamaterial Wire Resonators with Applications on Sensor Devices

This paper considers the transmission of scalable video via broadcast and multicast to increase spectral and energy efficiency in cellular networks. To address this problem, we study the use of generalized spatial modulation (GSM) combined with non-orthogonal hierarchical M-QAM modulations due to the capability to exploit the potential gains of large scale antenna systems and achieve high spectral and energy efficiencies. We introduce the basic idea of broadcasting/multicasting scalable video associated to GSM, and discuss the key limitations. Non-uniform hierarchical QAM constellations are used for broadcasting/multicasting scalable video while user specific messages are carried implicitly on the indexes of the active transmit antennas combinations. To deal with multiple video and dedicated user streams multiplexed on the same transmission, an iterative receiver with reduced complexity is described. 5G New Radio (NR) based link and system level results are presented. Two different ways of quadruplicating the number of broadcasting programs are evaluated and compared. Performance results show that the proposed GSM scheme is capable of achieving flexibility and energy efficiency gain over conventional multiple input multiple output (MIMO) schemes.

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Broadcasting Scalable Video With Generalized Spatial Modulation in Cellular Networks

We consider signal space diversity based on Complex Rotation Matrices (CRM) known to provide good performance gains over uncorrelated Rayleigh fading channels. OFDM/OFDMA signals based on LTE-A parameters are combined with CRM, spatial multiplexing (MIMO), Turbo or LDPC codes. It is shown that CRM outperform RRM (Real Rotation Matrix), as well as HM (Hadamard Matrices). The gains are especially high for the uncoded case, but we still have noticeable gains in the coded case, especially for high code rates.

Rotation matrices for OFDM transmission

In this correspondence, we propose a space domain index modulation (IM) scheme for the downlink of multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) systems. Instead of the most common approach where spatial bits select active receiver antennas, in the presented scheme the spatial information is mapped onto the transmitter side. This allows IM to better exploit large dimensional antenna settings which are typically easier to deploy at the base station. In order to mitigate inter-user interference and allow single user detection, a precoder is adopted at the BS. Furthermore, two alternative enhanced signal construction methods are proposed for minimizing the transmitted power or enable an implementation with a reduced number of RF chains. Simulation results for different scenarios show that the proposed approach can be an attractive alternative to conventional precoded MU-MIMO.

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A Precoding Aided Space Domain Index Modulation Scheme for Downlink Multiuser MIMO Systems

The Iterative Block Decision Feedback Equalizer (IB-DFE) is a promising technique for single carrier (SC) block transmissions whose performance can approach the matched filter bound in severely time dispersive channels. In this paper we evaluate analytically and through simulations the impact of imperfect channel estimation on the performance of this equalizer and propose a modified IB-DFE which is shown to be more robust against the presence of strong error components in the channel estimates.

Nuno Souto

Papers

Design of a Reconfigurable THz Filter Based on Metamaterial Wire Resonators with Applications on Sensor Devices

Broadcasting Scalable Video With Generalized Spatial Modulation in Cellular Networks

Rotation matrices for OFDM transmission

A Precoding Aided Space Domain Index Modulation Scheme for Downlink Multiuser MIMO Systems

Reliability of an IB-DFE in the Presence of Channel Estimation Errors