SKY5G: Prototyping 5G Aerial Base Station (UAV-BS) for On-Demand Connectivity from Sky

Abstract

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) as a cellular Base Station (BS), referred to as UAV-BS, has become a vital asset for emergency response due to their ability to offer an on-demand, adaptable, and expeditious communication solution. The current literature indicates a notable absence of a unified robotics and communication architecture for prototyping UAV-BS, which utilizes open source software and hardware. Further, current work on positioning algorithms of UAV- BS also fails to adequately address the adaptability of UAV-BS in effectively managing spatio-temporal skewness in traffic demands from UEs. In this backdrop, we present Sky5G, a real-world prototype platform for UAV-BS comprised entirely of open-source soft-ware and hardware components. Sky5G platform relies on a middleware to unify the radio and flight responsibilities of UAV-BS. Through several open-sky experiments of Sky5G, we assess various optimal UAV-BS positioning algorithms in response to ground user distribution and spatio-temporal traffic demands.