Measuring Electromagnetic Field Strength in Base Stations Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have become quite popular, especially due to their low cost and high maneuverability. Primarily, the fact that UAVs do not require a human factor reduces the risk during challenging operations and increases operational efficiency. In this study, electromagnetic field strength (EMFS) and the magnitude of the broadcast frequency of the antennas in the GSM base stations were measured by taking advantage of UAVs. To this end, we collected a data set that includes images of antennas located at the GSM base stations and then trained the You Only Look Once (YOLO) algorithm to detect those antennas in real time applications. Then, we calibrated the RGB camera and lidar to compute the distances between the UAV and the detected antennas and measured the EMFS from a predefined distance from the antenna. We conducted studies for better calibration of camera and the lidar to detect the distance with more precision.