Analysis of Wind Effect on Drone Relay Communications

Abstract

In this study, we realized a relay network using drones and analyzed the impact of the sway angle of a drone’s attitude on communication in a windy flight environment. Drones in flight act as radio relay stations and communication among them is performed using radio equipment mounted on board. In a windy environment, a directional antenna is used for relay communication among them to avoid interference caused by the spread of radio waves in space and extend the relay distance. However, when wind occurs during flight, the flying attitude of the drone inclines, which causes the beam of the antenna to sway and the communication link to be disconnected, leading to a decrease in the transmission speed. In this study, we statistically evaluated the pitch, yaw, and roll axes of a drone through wind tunnel experiments. Furthermore, the pattern of the swing angle of the drone with respect to the wind speed was investigated using computer simulations to analyze the fluid dynamics and theoretically analyze the swing of the drone. Based on these results, the transmission speed when using a directional antenna was calculated. When the wind speed was 6.0 m/s, the pitch axis deflection angle of the drone was 13∘ at maximum, and the average transmission speed decreased by 33.3 Mbps. In this study, it was found that in communication between drones due to the wind, the transmission efficiency decreased depending on the sway angle of the aircraft.