3GPP Standardization for Cellular‐Supported UAVs

The 3rd generation partnership project (3GPP) has been the dominating standardization development body of several global mobile technologies. The 3GPP completed the first global 5th generation (5G) new radio (NR) standard in its Release 15. This chapter provides a short introduction to long‐term evolution (LTE) and NR from the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) operation perspective. It discusses the characteristic when UAVs are served by cellular networks, and presents in detail the specified LTE support for UAV operation in mobile networks, comparing it to NR. Even without regulatory mandating it, flying mode detection is needed by the network in order for the network to control its resources and, for example, for interference detection and mitigation. Finally, the chapter also discusses that drone flight mode detection is regarded as one of the critical aspects when drones are served by mobile networks.