Experiments on Drone-to-Drone Communication with Wi-Fi, LTE-A, and 5G

This work investigates by real-world experiments the throughput and latency of drone-to-drone communications using different wireless technologies. Direct air-to-air links via Wi-Fi 802.11ac are compared to communication via LTE-A and 5G systems on the ground. The following can be observed: Wi-Fi provides a significantly lower drone-to-drone latency than the detour via cellular infrastructure; LTE-A and 5G provide a moderate but reliable throughput of about 50 Mbit/s; and Wi-Fi offers a better throughput only when drones are close to each other. We envision that this work will provide relevant experimental insights for the design of communication protocols in the context of multi-drone systems.