Impact of Emission Noise and Electromagnetic Shielding on Mobile Communication Systems in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are widely spreading in industrial fields such as logistics, surveillance, and disaster relief. UAVs are usually controlled through remote controllers, but the transmission range is limited to a few kilometers. To expand their flight area, industrial UAVs use mobile communication systems. Mobile communication systems, such as long-term evolution (LTE) and 5 ^th generation (5G), are sensitive to electromagnetic interference since 3 ^rd generation partnership project (3GPP) defined the receiver sensitivity of mobile communication systems to operate correctly even at low power. The electromagnetic (EM) environment is complex since various electric modules are densely mounted inside UAVs. Therefore, UAVs need evaluation and countermeasures for electromagnetic interference to operate safely above a populated area. This paper shows the evaluation of emission noise from UAVs and the effect of EM shielding by their chassis. In the case of the test UAV, emission noise degraded the receiver sensitivity of the LTE communication system by 30 dB, and the EM shielding degraded the sensitivity by 18 dB in the 800-MHz band. Emission noise and EM shielding significantly impact the wireless performance of UAVs.