+s309/icres2510.2021 9620767 5 = § 5 C-band Air-to-Ground Communications for Small Drone Hee Wook Kim and Dacho Kim Autonomous Unmanned Vehicle Research Department PIRI Daejeon, Korea prince304@etrirekt, dacho@etri.re kr Abstract— In order for UAV to be safely operated into national airspace and support various missions, the dedicated C-band frequencles, the 5030-5091 MH and 5091-5150 MHz has been allocated in Korea for the drone control and mission data Hinks, respectively. However, the support of control and mission inks operated independently in the two frequency bands i challenging on small drones considering they have size, weight and power limitations. Therefore the data exchange for control and mission between small drone and ground should be done via single communication link. In this paper, we propose a new waveform for an air-to-ground communication link, operating at the 5091- 5150 MHz frequeney band, that simultaneously supports drone ‘control and mission data transmission. Keywords— Drone, Control Data Link, Waveform, Mission Data Link, 1. Iyrropuction Ina drone system, control and mission data links are required forthe safe operation of drone into national airspace as well as the support of various mission applications. The contol date link means the data link between the drone and the control station for the purpose ofthe safe operation of drone via fight management, drone status monitoring and system management, etc. On the other hands, tae mission data link enables to transmit and receive drone mission equipment data. Generally, the mission data link requires broadband communication in order to support a lot of data traffic from mission equipment suc as FHD camera compate toa small size of data trafic required for drone contol, For those control and mission datalinks, in small drones, unlicensed band commercial communication modules such as \WIFl and RC are widely used because they are readily available and cheap. However, the use of unlicensed band modules to the control and mission data links of the small drones has several problems, The use of unlicensed bands cannot guarantee quality Of service for e communication link due to severe interference from other unlicensed ground equipment as well as has coverage limitation due to the regulation for transmit power limitation Those issues make the use of unlicensed bands inappropriate to apply for small drones operating beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) requiring the high level of safety inthe future. In those Feasons, many drone manufactures are raising the need for specific frequency bands dedicated for drone control and ‘mission data links and accordingly, some licensed frequency ypands for drone control and mission data links have been 978-1-6654.2383.0/21/831.00 ©2021 IEEE 869 {G AND RES. Oownloadedon snuary 102022, Byounggi Kim and Jongsoo Lee (Communication System Department COMESTAR Dacjeon, Korea shortremember@hanmail.net, mesosome98@hanmail.net allocated in the range of C-band frequency in Korea, The frequency band, 5030-5091 MIlzis allocated to a drone control data link as one of global harmonized frequency bands for a ‘drone control data link. On the other hands, the frequency band, 5091-5150 MHz is allocated to drone mission data link for domestic use in Korea. In order to support the drone control and mission data links independently operating at each ofthe two frequency bands, itis requited for two independent modems to be equipped onboard and itis challenging on small drones which have size, weight ‘and power (SWaP) limitations. Therefore, in small drones, both of the contol and mission data links should be supported on single physical data link operating at one of the two frequency bands. The frequency band, $030-5091 MHz is used only for a drone control link according to ITU-R regulation and ICAO SARPs while the frequency band, 5091-5150 MIlz ean be used for both ofthe drone control and mission data links according to Korean domestic regulation In this paper, we propose a new waveform for an air-io- ground communication link, operating at the frequency band, 5091-5150 MHz that simultaneously supports the drone control and mission data transmission, T, _ REQUIREMENT FoR WAVEFORM DESIGN Inorder tod requirement is ive a new waveform technology, the following onsidere. © Maximum data rate: 20 Mbps (to support FHD video transmission) + Maximum Coverage: 4 km ‘+ Maximum UAV velocity: 150 km! + Maximum delay spread: 12 us + LowPAPR, + Support of variable rate + Low spectrum leakage: out-of-band emission below ~ 60dBe from peak + The number of supported drones: 10 + Support of Bi-drection communication irc 2021 183505 UTC from EEE Xpore,Resticion apy.* Support of different QoS between control and mission data traffic Based on the above requirements, the following characteristics are reflected in the proposed waveform design. TABLE Maa Cuancrensics oF 18 Prowosi Wavasonte Characters Frome ‘fame azure of te C-band cocmunicaon {ecology operating at SUS0-S091 Mla rte Jntererene rom Cand coal commision + Sugprt of Aivte- Ground (A2G) aswell a Ato-Aie (A28) Communication loge carer based waveform coniding raters of ampli nonlinear fom SWaP int of view of smal dove (PAPR cbratecst is Deter thn melscamer sytem suchas WP) + Applied SCEDE (Single Cami-Fecucney Domain ‘Ebalzatog) seme fer low-complexity operation it ‘mulling chamels mu, A. Frame Structure ‘Bach radio frame has a ength of T,= 50 ms, and consists of subframe #0 ~ #4 with a length T= 10 ms. The first subframe (0, # 0) is used by the indication of the upper layer. The radio frame number corresponding to an integer multiple of 20 starts atan integer multiple of | second in UTC time. DETAIL WAVEFORM DESIGN RESULTS a a = ae ‘The subframes has a length of Ty= 10 ms and consist of two preamble symbols, nine slots and guard time as seen in figure 2 Itis assumed that multiple access with ten drones are supported within one radio frame. Slot #0 is used for the uplink of control ata links forthe drone #2N) and the drone #2N-1). On the other hands, slots #1~4 and #5~8 are used for the downlink of both control and mission data links for the drone #2N) and the rone #(2N+1) where N represents the number of the subframe number. Of course, by the indication ofthe upper layer, whole slots ean be used forthe uplink and downlink of only one drone. Decision on how t0 allocate each of uplink and downlink slots to cach of supporting drones is made by the upper layer, {depending on the number of supporting drones and required data rates |= Fike paces: 7 Conidesig UAV slong of 30k + Cousin -2us delay spend Modulation OPS, 16QAM to support araslere sad TD + Zadof Cho sequece wit ow PAPR Puncture io sade o pp vanes MS mode 7 Support of variable modulations nd ding tr + Sapp of varaie bh ~ Be. feral Figure? Subtime Structure Each slot has 4pilot blocks and 20 date blocks as seen in Figure 3. Both pilot blocks and data blocks consist of CP of 16132164, symbol lengths and useful block of 128/256/512 symbol lengths in 510/30 MHz BW profiles, respectively. The useful block of pilot and preamble blocks are based on Zadoft= chau sequence for low PAPR. EES FE) FRE) Tow ce + Toapply TARRC feng ‘heres oad ve ind: SOCIETY FOR APPLIED MICROWAVE ELEC ENG AND RES, Downloaded on January 10,202 at 195905 UTC rom EE Xplore, Reticton apply. 870 B. Channel coding Im order to support variable MCS modes, punctured turbo‘code is proposed similar to LTE but here additional channel interleaving is considered after rate matching in order to overcome multipath fading mobile channel environment. . Detail waveform parameter design Detail waveform parameters for C-band A2G communication link are designed as followings, TABLE IL, Dera. Wavtvon Paxawerens IV, SIMULATION RESULTS Figures 5 and 6 show the packet error rate (PER) for uplink and downlink, respectively according to SNR in AWGN ‘channel similar 10 LoS channel environments of drone ‘operating at high altitude. Figure 5. PER prormance of awnlink in AWGN chanel sm Table III shows analysis results on the required rect sensitivity for various supported data rates and bandwidths ‘TABLEML REQUIRED REcIvERSeNsTVY ve a as Ve Coxctusion In this paper, we propose a new waveform for an air-to- ‘ground communication link, operating atthe frequency band, 5091-5150 MHz that simultaneously supports the drone control ‘and mission data tansmission. The proposed waveform technology can support variable data rates up to 20 MHz and various transmission bandwidth up to 20 MHZ with low PAPR. Also it can support different QoSs for control and mission data trafes ACKNOWLEDGMENT. ‘This research was supported by Unmanned Vehicles Core ‘Technology Research and Development Program through the "National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) and Unmanned Vehicle Advanced Research Center (UVARC) funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT, the Republic of Korea (2021M 3C. IC 140108452112) REFERENCES. UU}. RTCA DO-362, “Command and Consol (C2) Data Link Minimum Opeatioal Porormance Stands (MOPS) (Teresi September oie ‘Grins 3."Unmsaned srr systems (UAS) iteration the Nations ‘Aspoce System (NAS) projet” UAS. Contol and. Nor-Pajoad ‘Comminicaton (CNPC) System Development and. Tesing” 2014 Integrated Communications, Naigaton and Surellance Conference AACNS) Conference Proceedings IEEE. 2014, p.1-24 Fredik Gunnarsson, “Dovatd base sation antennas ~ 4 sinaltion| mde proposal and impact on HSPA and LTE performancein Pro TERE Neue Iochology Confrence (VIC) shia 20 a ‘Authorize licensed use lined 1: SOCIETY FOR APPLIED MICROWAVE ELEC ENG ANO RES. Downloaded on January 1020223 13:3805 UTC Yom IEEE Xere. Restitons app