Simulations of Diversity Techniques for Urban UAV Data Links

摘要

In urbanized terrain, radiowave propagation is subjected to fading on large-scales and small-scales that would impede on the quality and reliability of data link transmission. This would have implications in many military applications. One example is the performance of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) data and communications links in complex urban environments. The purpose of this research is to study the effectiveness of diversity techniques on the performance of urban UAV data and communications links. The techniques investigated were spatial, polarization, and angle diversities. The ray tracing software, Urbana Wireless Toolset, was used in the modeling and simulation process. The various combinations of diversity techniques were simulated using a realistic urban city model. For the few transmit-receive geometries examined, it was found that angle diversity with a directive antenna provided the greatest increase in signal strength relative to the no diversity case.