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We report measured performance of 802.11a wireless links from an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to ground stations. In a set of field experiments, we record the received signal strength indicator (RSSI) and measure the raw link-layer throughput for various antenna orientations, communication distances and ground-station elevations. By comparing the performance of 32 simultaneous pairs of UAV and ground station configurations, we are able to conclude that, in order to achieve the highest throughput under a typical flyover UAV flight path, both the UAV and the ground station should use omni-directional dipole (as opposed to high-gain, narrow- beam) antennas positioned horizontally, with their respective antenna null pointing to a direction perpendicular to the UAV's flight path. In addition, a moderate amount of elevation of the ground stations can also improve performance significantly.
Cheng et al. (Sun,) studied this question.