Aerial Base Stations for Global Connectivity: Is it a Feasible and
Reliable Solution?
Abstract
Even though achieving global connectivity represents one of the main
goals of 5G and beyond wireless networks, exurban areas are still
suffering frequent outages due to the lack of proper telecom
infrastructures, which are often available only in urban areas. Indeed,
cellular network design is usually capacity-driven, and thus base
stations’ densities mostly follow population and especially revenue
densities. Contextually, we focus on one of the most promising solutions
to provide sufficient and reliable coverage in far-flung areas: aerial
base stations, which consist of unmanned aerial vehicles carrying
cellular base station equipment. In this paper, we extensively discuss
the problem of bridging the so-called urban-rural digital divide (i.e.,
the connectivity gap between urban and rural areas) from various
perspectives. First, we showcase various alternative solutions, and
compare conventional terrestrial networks with aerial networks from a
techno-economic point of view. Then, we highlight the topological
aspects of rural environments and explain how they can affect the actual
design of cellular networks. In addition, we investigate both the
coverage probability and the reliability of the communication links via
simulations, proving that the integration of aerial base stations can be
quite promising in a 6G perspective. Finally, we propose two original
extensions of our case study as open problems.