A Predictive Control Framework for UAS Trajectory Planning Considering 4G/5G Communication Link Quality

A reliable command and control (C2) data link is required for unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) operations in order to monitor the status and support the control of UAS. A practical realization of the C2 communication and mission data links for commercial UAS operations is via LTE/5G networks. While the trajectory of each UAS directly determines the flight distance and mission cost in terms of energy dissipation, it also has a strong correlation to the quality of the communication link provided by a serving base station, where quality is defined as the achieved signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) required to maintain the control link of the UAS. Due to signal interference and the use of RF spectrum resources, the trajectory of a UAS not only determines the communication link quality it will encounter, but also influences the link quality of other UAS in its vicinity. Therefore, effective UAS traffic management must plan the trajectory for a group of UAS taking into account the impact to the interference levels of other base stations and UAS communication links. In this paper, an SINR Aware Predictive Planning (SAPP) framework is presented for trajectory planning of UAS leveraging 4G/5G communication networks in a simulated environment. The goal is to minimize flight distance while ensuring a minimum required link quality for C2 communications between UAS and base stations. The predictive control approach is proposed to address the challenges of the time varying SINR caused by the interference from other UAS’s communication. Experimental results show that the SAPP framework provides more than 3dB improvements on average for UAS communication parameters compared to traditional trajectory planning algorithms while still achieving shortest path trajectories and collision avoidance.