Our developed UAV platform is the first one equipped with both 4G LTE and WiGig network technologies in the world. It addresses the limitations of current UAV platforms, which rely on only the WiFi technology for wireless communication. The limitations include short control and flight ranges with only several hundred meters, and slow speeds for the communication with servers on the ground. To this end, we integrate 4G LTE and WiGig network technologies into a customized UAV platform. The UAV is controlled through the LTE network, which has pervasive coverage, by a smartphone or a laptop. Its data communication mainly relies on the WiGig, which can achieve gigabit-per-second speeds, but it can be switched between LTE and WiGig.
We tackle two major challenges: how to effectively, timely control UAV through LTE networks, and how to integrate the UAV control with the WiGig ultrahigh-speed communication. The first challenge comes from the greater variance of packet delays in LTE networks, compared with WiFi networks. The stable flight requires the UAV to receive consecutive control messages periodically, so the variance may lead to shaky flight. The second challenge is that the control and the WiGig belong to different systems, but they need to be coordinated to finish tasks. The solutions of these two challenges can be the major merits of our UAV platform, compared with current UAVs. This UAV can provide extensive control/flight ranges larger than 1 kilometer, and achieves high-speed communication up to 500Mbps. It will stimulate the development of upcoming UAV applications, which require great movement ranges and high-speed transmission during flight, for example, UAV security monitoring, UAV HD video delay live, UAV wireless network hotspot, to name a few.
This contribution can shed some light on the industry of UAV development and related applications. Moreover, it has great advantages in current markets, since there have been not any UAV platforms with both LTE and WiGig network accesses.