Dynamic Standalone Drone-Mounted Small Cells

Abstract: This paper investigates the feasibility of Dynamic Horizontal Opportunistic Positioning (D-HOP) use in Drone Small Cells (DSCs), with a central analysis on the impact of antenna equipment efficiency onto the optimal DSC altitude that has been chosen in favor of maximizing coverage. We extend the common urban propagation model of an isotropic antenna to account for a directional antenna, making it dependent on the antenna's ability to fit the ideal propagation pattern. This leads us to define a closed-form expression for calculating the Rate improvement of D-HOP implementations that maintain constant coverage through antenna tilting. Assuming full knowledge of the uniformly distributed active users' locations, three D-HOP techniques were tested: in the center of the Smallest Bounding Circle (SBC); the point of Maximum Aggregated Rate (MAR); and the Center-Most Point (CMP) out of the two aforementioned. Through analytic study and simulation we infer that DSC D-HOP implementations are feasible when using electrically small and tiltable antennas. Nonetheless, it is possible to achieve average per user average rate increases of up to 20-35% in low user density scenarios, or 3-5% in user-dense scenarios, even when using efficient antennas in a DSC that has been designed for standalone coverage.