Improving Drone's Command and Control Link Reliability through Dual-Network Connectivity

In this work, we analyze the end-to-end latency measured in a client-server application that emulates the traffic requirements for the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)' s Command and Control (C2) link. The connectivity is provided by two real LTE-A networks to a client attached to a flying UAV. Measurements are performed at 4 different heights: ground level, 15 m, 40 m and 100 m. In single operator scenarios, the reliability measured at the target latency, 50 ms, was between 99.6 % and 97.6 % in downlink, and 91.3% and 99.4% in uplink. These results are below the 99.9 % target reliability defined for UAVs and they show that several consecutive packets can be missed when the radio link connectivity degrades, leading to high (> 1 s) values for the 99.9%-ile of latency. To circumvent this, a dual-operator hybrid access scheme is proposed in this paper. The results show that the hybrid access strategy managed to reach the performance requirements in most cases. The solution shows potential to enable C2 over cellular networks, without requiring optimization or modifications in the network.