ENERGY HARVESTING BETWEEN UAVS FOR BACKHAUL CONNECTION

Abstract

UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) has become an essential part of 6G. UAVs can make it easier to have a LOS (light-of-sight) connection and quicker to launch a network. However, backhaul connection and energy limitations are two main reasons that slow down UAV usage. In our research, we propose a mixture model, which combines a tethered UAV and a UAV. The tethered UAV is connected to a truck by a fiber optic cable that ensures energy and fast data transmission to it via optical communication. The tethered UAV forwards laser signals from the truck to the UAV to charge and transfer data simultaneously via FSO (free space optical) communication. We consider the harvested energy collected at the UAV under a given BER (bit error rate). The harvested energy is evaluated by multiple factors, such as transmitted power, the position of the UAV, and the FSO link length in our simulation results. The FSO link includes several phenomena, such as atmospheric attenuation, turbulence, and pointing error.