TY - JOUR
T1 - 3-D Position Optimization of Solar-Powered Hovering UAV Relay in Optical Wireless Backhaul
AU - Liu, Heyou
AU - Bashir, Salman
AU - Alouini, Mohamed-Slim
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Office of Sponsored Research at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST).
Publisher Copyright:
© 1965-2011 IEEE.
PY - 2025/6/11
Y1 - 2025/6/11
N2 - A major hurdle in widespread deployment of uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) in existing communications infrastructure is the limited UAV onboard energy. Therefore, this study considers solar energy harvesting UAVs for wireless communications. In this context, we consider 3-D position optimization of a solar-powered UAV relay that connects a distant sensor field to an optical ground station (OGS) for data processing. The integrated sensor-UAV-OGS network utilizes radio frequency band for sensor-to-UAV links and the optical band for the UAV-to-OGS feeder link. Since atmospheric conditions affect both the harvested solar energy as well as the optical wireless signal, this study tackles UAV position optimization problems under various channel conditions such as clouds, atmospheric turbulence and dirt. From this study, we discover that the optimum position of the UAV—that maximizes the end-to-end channel capacity—is heavily dependent on the atmospheric channel conditions.
AB - A major hurdle in widespread deployment of uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) in existing communications infrastructure is the limited UAV onboard energy. Therefore, this study considers solar energy harvesting UAVs for wireless communications. In this context, we consider 3-D position optimization of a solar-powered UAV relay that connects a distant sensor field to an optical ground station (OGS) for data processing. The integrated sensor-UAV-OGS network utilizes radio frequency band for sensor-to-UAV links and the optical band for the UAV-to-OGS feeder link. Since atmospheric conditions affect both the harvested solar energy as well as the optical wireless signal, this study tackles UAV position optimization problems under various channel conditions such as clouds, atmospheric turbulence and dirt. From this study, we discover that the optimum position of the UAV—that maximizes the end-to-end channel capacity—is heavily dependent on the atmospheric channel conditions.
KW - channel capacity
KW - cloud
KW - optical wireless signal
KW - position optimization
KW - solar energy harvesting relay
KW - unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85216557200
U2 - 10.1109/TAES.2025.3526742
DO - 10.1109/TAES.2025.3526742
M3 - Article
SN - 0018-9251
VL - 61
SP - 5853
EP - 5870
JO - IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems
JF - IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems
IS - 3
M1 - 10851439
ER -
