Proceedings of IC-NIDC2010

AN ANALYSIS OF COMMUNICATION PERFORMANCE ACCORDING TO ANTENNA DIRECTIONALITY IN UAV OPERATION ENVIRONMENT

MyungGu Park, Jaeil Jung
Laboratory of Multimedia Networking, Deptartment of Electronics and Computer Engineering, Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea Parkmg@mnlab.hanyang.ac.kr, jijung@hanyang.ac.kr

Abstract
In recent years, Network Centric Warfare (NCW) is widely accepted as a prominent concept in the future warfare. In particular, the collection of information by using the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) while minimizing exposure to enemy forces is becoming an important concept to take advantage of an efficient war. The characteristic selection of the antenna for efficient utilization of UAV is an important part and it can improve or decline the performance of wireless systems. Especially, the choice of the directional and omni-directional antennas is an important factor to determine the distance, which can be the maximum transmission range of data. In this paper, we analyze the distance effect by using two types of antennas (i.e., omni-directional and directional antenna) in order to obtain the optimized communication range between two stations (i.e., moving and fixed station). To achieve this goal, we perform a simulation study by means of QualNet 4.5 simulator and analyze the results by using modeling and simulation method. Keywords : UAV, NCW, Directionality, Antenna

NCW improves the efficiency of military force. Moreover, it is ensuring the information sharing to components of battlefield by using the computer's data processing and a networked communications technology. Tactical Network is the network that NCW is implemented in the battlefield. Tactical Airborne Network is some kind of Tactical Network. Tactical Airborne Network consists of fighter plane or UAV such as air platform. Tactical Airborne Network is highly advanced by combining Internet Protocol (IP) and Ad-hoc network. In recent years, Tactical Airborne Network is using directional antenna to enhance the radio transmission range, the efficient use of resources and Low Probability of Interception/Detection (LPI/D). A directional antenna uses the change of the signal intensity to track the moving object. Therefore, maximum transmission range is further than omnidirectional antenna. However, an additional algorithm is required for tracking. Conversely, the omni-directional antenna is not required an additional algorithm for tracking because omnidirectional antenna is not need to point a particular direction. Therefore, the maximum transmission will be shorter than directional antenna. In this paper, the fixed station antenna is classified with two types such as a directional and omnidirectional antenna in the UAV operating environment. Then, the maximum transmission range was analyzed by using the Modeling and Simulation (M & S) method. The rest of this paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, we describe the concept of NCW. In Section 3, we introduce types and characteristics of antennas used in NCW. The common simulation setup and the evaluation result are given in Section 4. In Section 5, we conclude our paper.

1 Introduction
With the advancement of military science technology, the battlefield has been evolved to Network Centric Warfare (NCW) from platform based on hardware. This phenomenon may be found in various international conflicts such as Iraq War. The reason why the importance of NCW is being magnified is as follows: i) some country of middle east is planning to constantly strengthen military strength ii) there is the potential threat among the countries directly involved to emphasize their sovereignty in maritime security areas iii) with respect to domestic affair, there is various non-military threats such as terrorism, natural disasters, etc.

2 The concept of the Network Centric Warfare (NCW)

NCW is able to do an efficient fight by networking all the elements of battlefield (i.e., the detection

___________________________________ 978-1-4244-6853-9/10/$26.00 2010 IEEE

854

system, the decision maker, the attacking system). The past warfare is a platform-centric. However, recent warfare regards the information more important. These systems are represented cases such as C4I (Command and Control, Communication, Computer, Intelligence) system, UAV and precision weapon system.

DirecNet is depicted in Figure 2. DirecNet provides data signaling rate up to 1Gbps to commanders and troops for data transmission to all elements of the battlefield. Moreover, NCW supports secure communication to the various media. However, in the case of Korea, an understanding and awareness of NCW system is insufficient. Only recently, research and investment of NCW has been conducting in order to improve the ability to conduct the war.

3 Types and characteristics of the antenna

An antenna is designed to transmit or receive electromagnetic waves. Compare with omnidirectional antenna, directional antenna takes advantages of throughput, the lower interference and battery life. Therefore, directional antenna is actively studying in NCW.

Figure 1. Principle of Network Centric Warfare (NCW) NCW consists of three kinds of logical structure. First, Information Grid provides data analysis and information exchange. Second, Sensor Grid improves the situational awareness and makes the high level of consensus on the battlefield. Finally, Engagement Grid imposes the conclusion effectively and timely.

Figure 3. Transmission range of omni-directional antenna

Figure 4. Transmission range of directional antenna As shown in Figure 3. omni-directional antenna is possible omni-directional communications regardless of the specific direction. In contrast, as shown in Figure 4, the communication range of a directional antenna is wider than omni-directional antenna in a certain direction when transmit power equal to omni-directional antenna. Moreover, interference of the directional antenna is lower than omni-directional antenna because the signal is collected in one direction. In addition, the throughput can be more efficient when the gain is improved in a direction of incoming signals.

Figure 2. Principle of DirecNet Today, each country is trying to build the NCW that is suitable for their capabilities and circumstance. UK has Network-Enabled Operation (NEO) model, Canada and Australia are pursuing the Network Capability (NEC) model. As another example, defense-related industries of the United States are pursuing the DirecNet since 2006.

855

Directional antenna can be classified into two type according to how to apply the beamformer(i.e., the switched beam and steered beam). Many researches have been conducted about these in the existing system. Switched beam antenna uses a predeterminated weight according to the direction of the receiving signal. As shown in Figure 5. steered beam antenna uses a measured weight according to receiving signal and interference.

Figure 7. Picture of simulations component Table 1. Simulation components

UAV speed Simulation time Type of directional antenna UAV distance (Terrain width) Shortest path of UAV and fixed station (h) 300km/h 3600s Steerable Antenna (Pattern 0) 300km 55.8km

Figure 5. Swiched beam antenna

Figure 8. Transmission range of directional antenna by pattern

Figure 6. Swiched beam antenna

4 Simulation
In this chapter, we analyze transmission range of signal according to the type of the fixed station's antenna. 4.1 Description of simulation This simulation was performed by using the Qualnet 4.5 program. Each component of the simulation environment is as Table 1. Figure 9 Path of UAV In this simulation, the maximum transmission range is defined L1. L1 depends on first telecommunication time (T2) and last communication time (T3) between UAV and fixed station. The directional antennas transmission

856

range is estimated by Figure 8. That is configured by Pattern. This simulation adopted Pattern 0. 4.2 Result of simulation Table 2 Simulation result
Directional antenna First communication time (T2) Last communication time (T3) Total communication time The percentage of communication available sector in UAV's distance Maximum transmission range (L1) 957s Omnidirectional antenna 1103s

[2]

[3]

2649s

2498s

[4]
1792s 1395s

49.8%

38.8%

[5]

151km

128km

[6]

Table 2. is the result of simulation. When we compare omni-directional antenna with directional antenna, the first communication time (T2) is faster and the last communication time (T3) is slower. Omni-directional antenna's communications sector is 11% longer than directional antenna in the UAV's total moving distance. Therefore, we learn from these results that omni-directional antenna's maximum transmission range (L1) is 15% longer than directional antenna between the UAV and the fixed station.

Directional Antennas in Wireless Mesh Networks, Communication, 2006 IEEE International Conference on, Vol. 9, pp.40834088, 14-16 Jun. 2006. J. S. Blogh and L. Hanzo, ThirdGeneration Systems and Intelligent Wireless Networking Smart Antennas and Adaptive Modulation, John Wiley & Sons, 2002 Diptiman Biswas, Selvanayaki K, Nilesh Patel and V. Ramachandra, An Airborne Antenna System for Broadside Coverage with Varying Roll and Pitch Angles, Applied Electromagnetic Conference AEMC-2007, IEEE Digital Object Identifier: 10.1109/AEMC.2007.4638021 R. W. Beard and T. W. McLain, Multiple UAV cooperative search under collision avoidance and limited range communication constraints,in Proc. 42nd IEEE Conf. Dec. Contr., 2003, pp. 2530. C. Wilson, "Network Centric Warfare : Background and Oversight Issues for Congress", CRS Report for Congress. June 2. 2004. Cebrowski, Arthur K and Garst ka, John J. "Network-Centric Warfare : Its Origins and Future." U.S Naval Institute Proceedings. January. 1998.

5 Conclusions
Comparing In this paper, we research the concept of NCW and the type of directional antenna and maximum transmission range according to type of fixed stations antenna in Tactical Airborne Network. The result of the simulation shows that the omnidirectional antenna's maximum transmission range is 15% longer than directional antenna. The future work is that the simulation result compare with calculated FADE Margin according to Link Budget. Moreover, we will test the throughput when UAV and the base station are very close such as UAV is taking off.

References
[1] U. Kumar, H. Gupta and S. R. Das, A Topology Control Approach to Using

857