A Placement Method for Low-Flying UAVs in High Data Rate Tactical Networks

A method for placement of low-flying UAVs for increasing the connectivity in a mobile tactical network is introduced and evaluated. By using frequencies at the L band, the radio network capacity can be significantly increased compared to traditional mobile tactical radio systems and the UAVs are needed to avoid network fragmentation. The main purpose of placing the UAVs at a low height above ground is to make them difficult to detect at a distance, by radar, signal surveillance or responsive jammers. The method takes as input all the positions of the network nodes in one time step and calculates the UAV positions for the next time step. The assessment was performed for different UAV heights by measuring the packet delivery ratio in network simulations of three scenarios with a mechanized battalion supported by 20 UAVs. Two of the scenarios used the Anglova vignette 2 trajectories and a third scenario was based on the same setup of battalion vehicles moving towards an enemy air drop. Synchronized cooperative broadcast was used as waveform model. The results show small packet losses for a flight height of 50 meters above the ground. For the lower 30-meter flight height, some network fragmentation was observed in one of the scenarios, due to large variations in terrain height.