Mobility Challenges for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Connected to Cellular LTE Networks

Mobility performance is at the heart of each cellular technology, including omni-present LTE networks. It becomes even more significant when such system is supposed to reliably support state-of-the-art devices, such as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), emerging at rapid pace in our surroundings. Contemporary network deployments, addressing mainly the needs of terrestrial users, were not optimized to serve UAVs moving below and above the typical cellular antenna heights. Thus, it is worth checking how they can handle these novel and distinctive services, also with respect to mobility robustness. This paper elaborates on the challenges ahead which must be tackled to make existing LTE networks sufficiently capable of accommodating Aerial Vehicles. We present simulation results in various environments, obtained for different user equipment's (UE's) heights and velocities. Furthermore, we describe and analyze the identified issues. Finally, we also suggest potential optimizations and future research goals.