Energy-efficient 3D UAV-BS Placement Versus Mobile Users' Density and Circuit Power

Abstract: Properly 3D placement of unmanned aerial vehicle mounted base stations (UAV-BSs) can effectively prolong the life-time of the mobile ad hoc network, since UAVs are usually powered by batteries. This paper involves the on-board circuit consumption power and considers the optimal placement that minimizes the UAV-recall-frequency (UAV-RF), which is defined to characterize the life-time of this kind of network. Theoretical results show that the optimal vertical and horizontal dimensions of UAV can be decoupled. That is, the optimal hovering altitude is proportional to the coverage radius of UAVs, and the slope is only determined by environment. Dense scattering environment may greatly enlarge the needed hovering altitude. Also, the optimal coverage radius is achieved when the transmit power equals to on-board circuit power, and hence limiting on-board circuit power can effectively enlarge life-time of system. In addition, our proposed 3D placement method only require the statistics of mobile users' density and environment parameters, and hence it's a typical on-line method and can be easily implemented. Also, it can be utilized in scenarios with varying users' density.