UAVs as Mobile Infrastructure: Addressing Battery Lifetime

UAVs can play an important role in next generation cellular networks, acting as flying infrastructure that can serve ground users when regular infrastructure is overloaded or unavailable. As these devices operate wirelessly, they rely on an internal battery for their power supply, which limits the amount of time they can operate over an area of interest before having to recharge. To accommodate this limitation, UAV networks will have to rely on dedicated infrastructure to recharge the UAV in between deployments. In this article, we outline three battery charging options that may be considered by a network operator and use simulations to demonstrate the performance impact of incorporating those options into a cellular network where UAV infrastructure provides wireless service.