Propagation Over the Sea Between Ship and UAV

Marine applications of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) need a good insight on propagation phenomena over the sea. Several tests have been developed at 2.4 GHz band in order to check the communication range and the received power at different distances between a radio station located onboard a ship and an UAV. Using the gathered data, two classical propagation models have been tuned in order to provide predictions on the behavior of such radio channel. This contribution covers a gap claimed by companies working with UAVs in sea science applications, both at coastal locations and in offshore operations.