UAV Connectivity in 5G Standalone Network: Field Trials in Urban Environment

Abstract

Drones have enabled new types of services in both urban and rural regions. However, safety concerns persist in urban regions, as operations under Visual Line-of-sight (VLoS) and Beyond Visual Line-of-Sight (BVLoS) conditions impose stringent performance, Quality of Service (QoS), and reliability requirements. Although existing 5G technologies are expected to meet the performance demands in terms of throughput and latency, there is limited evidence on how these requirements are achieved in an urban environment. In this paper, we present our drone measurement testbed and summarise the results of the 5G Standalone (SA) QoS measurements conducted in public and private networks with aim of improving guaranteed connectivity in urban areas and supporting prioritised Command-and-Control (C2) alongside non-prioritised payload traffic. The results indicate that further adaptations in 5G SA network planning and configuration are necessary to reliably support both airborne and terrestrial communication services.