Design Feasibility and Link Budget Assessment of Aerial 5G IoT and eMBB Connectivity

by Jyrki Penttinen, Alphacore, Tempe, Arizona.

Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) equipped with radios can establish rapid, ad-hoc connectivity in areas where terrestrial infrastructure is unavailable or compromised. Leveraging the virtualized architecture of Fifth Generation (5G) mobile networks, both base station and required minimal core functions can be hosted aloft, enabling agile IoT or eMBB centric private networks for emergency response, expeditionary, military operations, and consumer events. This study evaluates the technical feasibility of UAV-mounted 5G Non-Public Network assembled from commercial off-the-shelf components, comparing the physical radio layer performance of IoT and evolved mobile broadband use cases. Candidate 3GPP architectural options are reviewed, and radio link budget calculations quantify physical layer performance in open and rural environments for a single UAV. The obtained results highlight the trade-off between frequency band, UAV-altitude, and the resulting radio coverage and data rate, providing design guidance for lightweight, energy efficient aerial 5G systems.