A Survey on Cellular-connected UAVs: Design Challenges, Enabling 5G/B5G\n Innovations, and Experimental Advancements

Abstract

As an emerging field of aerial robotics, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have\ngained significant research interest within the wireless networking research\ncommunity. As soon as national legislations allow UAVs to fly autonomously, we\nwill see swarms of UAV populating the sky of our smart cities to accomplish\ndifferent missions: parcel delivery, infrastructure monitoring, event filming,\nsurveillance, tracking, etc. The UAV ecosystem can benefit from existing 5G/B5G\ncellular networks, which can be exploited in different ways to enhance UAV\ncommunications. Because of the inherent characteristics of UAV pertaining to\nflexible mobility in 3D space, autonomous operation and intelligent placement,\nthese smart devices cater to wide range of wireless applications and use cases.\nThis work aims at presenting an in-depth exploration of integration synergies\nbetween 5G/B5G cellular systems and UAV technology, where the UAV is integrated\nas a new aerial User Equipment (UE) to existing cellular networks. In this\nintegration, the UAVs perform the role of flying users within cellular\ncoverage, thus they are termed as cellular-connected UAVs (a.k.a. UAV-UE,\ndrone-UE, 5G-connected drone, or aerial user). The main focus of this work is\nto present an extensive study of integration challenges along with key 5G/B5G\ntechnological innovations and ongoing efforts in design prototyping and field\ntrials corroborating cellular-connected UAVs. This study highlights recent\nprogress updates with respect to 3GPP standardization and emphasizes\nsocio-economic concerns that must be accounted before successful adoption of\nthis promising technology. Various open problems paving the path to future\nresearch opportunities are also discussed.\n