Networked flying platforms (NFPs) are unmanned flying platforms of various types including unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs),

drones Drone most commonly refers to: * Drone (bee), a male bee, from an unfertilized egg * Unmanned aerial vehicle * Unmanned surface vehicle, watercraft * Unmanned underwater vehicle or underwater drone Drone, drones or The Drones may also refer to: ...

tethered balloon A tethered, moored or captive balloon is a balloon that is restrained by one or more tethers attached to the ground and so it cannot float freely. The base of the tether is wound around the drum of a winch, which may be fixed or mounted on a vehic ...

and high-altitude/medium-altitude/low-altitude platforms (HAPs/MAPs/LAPs) carrying RF/ mmWave/ FSO payload ( transceivers) along with an extended

battery life An electric battery is a source of electric power consisting of one or more electrochemical cells with external connections for powering Electricity, electrical devices. When a battery is supplying power, its positive terminal is the cathode a ...

capabilities, and are floating or moving in the air at a quasi-stationary positions with the ability to move horizontally and vertically to offer 5G and beyond 5G (B5G) cellular networks and network support services.

Deployment configurations

There are following two possible NFPs deployment configurations: * Deployment configuration 1: NFPs are expected to complement the conventional cellular networks to further enhance the wireless capacity, expand the

coverage Coverage may refer to: Filmmaking * Coverage (lens), the size of the image a lens can produce * Camera coverage, the amount of footage shot and different camera setups used in filming a scene * Script coverage, a short summary of a script, wri ...

and improve the network reliability for temporary events, where there is a high density of mobile users or

small cell Small cells are low-powered cellular radio access nodes that operate in licensed and unlicensed spectrum that have a range of 10 meters to a few kilometers. In other words, they are base stations with low power consumption and cheap cost that ...

s in a limited/hard to reach area or in a remote region where infrastructure is not available and expensive to deploy, e.g., sports events and concert gatherings * Deployment configuration 2: NFPs can be deployed for unexpected scenarios, such as in emergency situations to support disaster relief activities and to enable communications when conventional cellular networks are either damaged or congested. In addition, owing to their mobility, NFPs are expected to deploy quickly and efficiently to support cellular networks, enhance network quality of service (QoS) and improve network resilience under emergency scenarios NFPs can be manually (non-autonomously) controlled but mainly designed for autonomous pre-determined flights. NFPs can either operate in a single NFP mode where NFPs do not cooperate with other NFPs in the network, if exists or a swarm of NFPs where multiple interconnected NFPs cooperate, collaborate and perform the network mission autonomously with one of the NFPs designated as mother-NFP

References

{{Reflist

External links

BT Drone flights to connect Isle of Lewis with mainland

Qualcomm Technologies releases LTE drone trial results

Intel testing drones over AT&T LTE Networks, Verizon starts 5G Trials with Samsung

Project Skybender: Google's secretive 5G internet drone tests revealed
Wireless networking Telecommunications Radio technology