A DoA Estimation Based Robust Beam Forming Method for UAV-BS Communication

Abstract

High data rate communication with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) is of growing demand among industrial and commercial applications since the last decade. In this paper, we investigate enhancing beam forming performance based on signal Direction of Arrival (DoA) estimation to support UAV-cellular network communication. We first study UAV fast moving scenario where we found that drone's mobility cause degradation of beam forming algorithm performance. Then, we propose a DoA estimation algorithm and a steering vector adaptive receiving beam forming method. The DoA estimation algorithm is of high precision with low computational complexity. Also it enables a beam former to timely adjust steering vector value in calculating beam forming weight. Simulation results show higher SINR performance and more stability of proposed method than traditional method based on Multiple Signal Classification (MUSIC) DoA estimation algorithm.