Flying Base Station 3D Positioning, Considering Path Loss, Coverage Area, and QoS Constraints

Today, the Internet plays a crucial role in our lives, and reliable access to it is vital. The Fifth-Generation (5G) and beyond networks have traditionally improved service delivery, whereas there are still problems in creating the infrastructure of these traditional networks. On the other hand, the advancement of drone technology has brought many applications. One of these applications is providing a 5G service as a Flying Base Station (FBS). In this paper, we have optimized the three-dimensional position of FBSs to provide service to all users under the coverage area, path loss, and Quality of Service (QoS) constraints. To minimize the number of FBS and the total transmission power, we formulated this problem in the form of the Weighted Set Cover Problem (WSCP), in which the weight of each subset is determined according to the transmission power. To generate the required subsets of the WSCP problem and discrete the problem space, we have presented a mathematical model to provide Selected Position Point (SPP) called Three-Dimensional Mesh Point Reducer (3DMPR). We compare the problem with the unweighted form (SCP) to investigate the effect of weight. The numerical results show that more FBSs will be used by applying the weight effect, while the total transmission power will decrease. Also, the results show that the data rate constraint significantly affects the number of FBS required to provide network service to all users.