Experimental Investigation of Electromagnetic Interference Effects on Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Video Transmission Quality

ABSTRACT Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are more widely used in industry and are reliant on stable real‐time communication and video streaming. These systems can be vulnerable to electromagnetic interference (EMI), which degrades communication performance and may interrupt mission operations. This paper presents an experimental study on the effect of EMI on the video transmission performance of an E88 ProDrone on a 2.4 GHz control and data link. The experiment was conducted in a semi‐anechoic chamber, suppressing environmental influence, and the test condition was the controlled variable. Interference signals generated by the signal generator were directed towards the stationary UAV, and the distance between the interference source and the UAV was kept constant at 1 m. The received interference power at the UAV position was computed using free space path loss (FSPL) and verified using a spectrum analyser, and the effect on the UAV video transmission system was recorded. Increasing the received interference power produced a progression from initial blurring and image shaking to freezing, buffering and complete loss of the displayed video feed. This study provides a controlled baseline for assessing the susceptibility of increasingly used low‐cost consumer UAV video links to EMI by relating computed and verified received interference levels to observable stages of video degradation.