Optimized deployment of drone base station to improve user experience in cellular networks

Abstract Modern wireless traffic demand pushes Internet Service Providers to develop effective strategies to improve user experience. Since deploying dense stationary base stations (SBSs) is not cost efficient, an alternative is to deploy drone base stations (drone-BSs) to supplement existing SBSs. We focus on the 3D deployment problem of drone-BSs to serve ground users in a given area. We formulate an optimization problem to find the optimal 3D positions for drone-BSs with the objective of maximizing the number of covered users, subject to the constraints that drone-BSs should be deployed at safe positions and the covered users receive acceptable Quality of Service. We analyze the difficulty of such a problem and show that it is NP-hard. A greedy algorithm is developed with computational complexity analysis. Extensive computer simulations are conducted to illustrative the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm and comparison with a baseline algorithm is provided to assess the performance gains.

[1]  Andrey V. Savkin,et al.  An Algorithm of Reactive Collision Free 3-D Deployment of Networked Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for Surveillance and Monitoring , 2020, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics.

[2]  Andrey V. Savkin,et al.  A Method for Optimized Deployment of a Network of Surveillance Aerial Drones , 2019, IEEE Systems Journal.

[3]  Hailong Huang,et al.  Asymptotically Optimal Deployment of Drones for Surveillance and Monitoring , 2019, Sensors.

[4]  Dimitrios Zorbas,et al.  Optimal drone placement and cost-efficient target coverage , 2016, J. Netw. Comput. Appl..

[5]  Andrey V. Savkin,et al.  Viable path planning for data collection robots in a sensing field with obstacles , 2017, Comput. Commun..

[6]  B. Sklar,et al.  Rayleigh fading channels in mobile digital communication systems Part I: Characterization , 1997, IEEE Commun. Mag..

[7]  Halim Yanikomeroglu,et al.  3-D Placement of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Base Station (UAV-BS) for Energy-Efficient Maximal Coverage , 2017, IEEE Wireless Communications Letters.

[8]  James R. Morrison,et al.  Automatic Battery Replacement System for UAVs: Analysis and Design , 2011, Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems.

[9]  Halim Yanikomeroglu,et al.  Environment-Aware Drone-Base-Station Placements in Modern Metropolitans , 2018, IEEE Wireless Communications Letters.

[10]  Mehdi Bennis,et al.  UAV-Assisted Heterogeneous Networks for Capacity Enhancement , 2016, IEEE Communications Letters.

[11]  Christian Wietfeld,et al.  Ad hoc self-healing of OFDMA networks using UAV-based relays , 2013, Ad Hoc Networks.

[12]  Andrey V. Savkin,et al.  Optimal Aircraft Planar Navigation in Static Threat Environments , 2017, IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems.

[13]  Luiz A. DaSilva,et al.  Deployment of UAV-mounted access points according to spatial user locations in two-tier cellular networks , 2016, 2016 Wireless Days (WD).

[14]  Halim Yanikomeroglu,et al.  Efficient 3-D placement of an aerial base station in next generation cellular networks , 2016, 2016 IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC).

[15]  Abbas Jamalipour,et al.  Modeling air-to-ground path loss for low altitude platforms in urban environments , 2014, 2014 IEEE Global Communications Conference.

[16]  Rui Zhang,et al.  Placement Optimization of UAV-Mounted Mobile Base Stations , 2016, IEEE Communications Letters.

[17]  Halim Yanikomeroglu,et al.  On the Number and 3D Placement of Drone Base Stations in Wireless Cellular Networks , 2016, 2016 IEEE 84th Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC-Fall).

[18]  Mahbub Hassan,et al.  Understanding autonomous drone maneuverability for Internet of Things applications , 2017, 2017 IEEE 18th International Symposium on A World of Wireless, Mobile and Multimedia Networks (WoWMoM).

[19]  D. Cotter,et al.  Ultra-high-bit-rate networking: from the transcontinental backbone to the desktop , 1997, IEEE Commun. Mag..

[20]  Andrey V. Savkin,et al.  Proactive Deployment of Aerial Drones for Coverage over Very Uneven Terrains: A Version of the 3D Art Gallery Problem , 2019, Sensors.

[21]  Robert W. Heath,et al.  Coverage and Rate Analysis for Millimeter-Wave Cellular Networks , 2014, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications.

[22]  Kathiravan Srinivasan,et al.  Intelligent deployment of UAVs in 5G heterogeneous communication environment for improved coverage , 2017, J. Netw. Comput. Appl..

[23]  Kandeepan Sithamparanathan,et al.  Optimal LAP Altitude for Maximum Coverage , 2014, IEEE Wireless Communications Letters.

[24]  Xu Li,et al.  Drone-assisted public safety wireless broadband network , 2015, 2015 IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference Workshops (WCNCW).

[25]  Andrey V. Savkin,et al.  Deployment of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Base Stations for Optimal Quality of Coverage , 2019, IEEE Wireless Communications Letters.

[26]  Andrey V. Savkin,et al.  A Method for Optimized Deployment of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for Maximum Coverage and Minimum Interference in Cellular Networks , 2019, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics.

[27]  Johnhenri R. Richardson,et al.  Autonomous battery swapping system for small-scale helicopters , 2010, 2010 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[28]  Stefania Sesia,et al.  LTE - The UMTS Long Term Evolution, Second Edition , 2011 .

[29]  Andrey V. Savkin,et al.  An Algorithm of Efficient Proactive Placement of Autonomous Drones for Maximum Coverage in Cellular Networks , 2018, IEEE Wireless Communications Letters.

[30]  Harri Hakula,et al.  Spatial Mappings for Planning and Optimization of Cellular Networks , 2016, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking.