Massive MIMO as enabler for communications with drone swarms

Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) is an emerging technology for mobile communications, where a large number of antennas are employed at the base station to simultaneously serve multiple single-antenna terminals with very high capacity. In this paper, we study the potentials and challenges of utilizing massive MIMO for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) communication. We consider a scenario where multiple single-antenna UAVs simultaneously communicate with a ground station (GS) equipped with a large number of antennas. Specifically, we discuss the achievable uplink (UAV to GS) capacity performance in the case of line-of-sight (LoS) conditions. We also study the type of antenna polarization that should be used in order to maintain a reliable communication link between the GS and the UAVs. The results obtained using a realistic geometric model show that massive MIMO is a potential enabler for high-capacity UAV networks.