Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS)

Reliable Long-Range Multi-Link Communication for Unmanned Search and Rescue Aircraft Systems in Beyond Visual Line of Sight Operation

This article proposes and evaluates the concept of combining multiple cellular networks for highly reliable communication with those aircraft systems. The proposed approach is experimentally validated in several unprecedented large-scale experiments in the maritime context. It is found that in this scenario, conventional methods do not suffice for reliable connectivity to the aircraft with significantly varying overall availabilities between 68% and 97%.