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Timing Synchronization and Ranging in Networked UAV-Aided OFDM Systems

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Journal of Communications and Information Networks

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Abstract

The space-air-ground network architecture integrates satellite systems, aerial networks, and terrestrial networks, where the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communication in the air segment has attracted particular interest and demonstrated tremendous potential in both military and civilian applications. Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) can be an effective solution to provide high rate and reliable transmission in UAV communication systems because of its high spectral efficiency and robustness against frequency selective fading. We herein focus our attention on two critical issues in our proposed UAV aided OFDM system, i.e., timing synchronization and ranging. Moreover, extensive simulations are conducted for evaluation. Finally, we design a real-world field test for verifying the effectiveness of our proposed multi-UAV OFDM communication system.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Beijing Research Institute of Telemetry, Beijing, 100076, China

    Chaoxing Yan, Lingang Fu & Ming Chen

  2. Department of Electrical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Jingjing Wang & Yong Ren

  3. Tsinghua Space Center, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Chunxiao Jiang

  4. Key Laboratory of EDA, Research Institute of Tsinghua University in Shenzhen, Shenzhen, 518057, China

    Chunxiao Jiang

Authors
  1. Chaoxing Yan
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  2. Jingjing Wang
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  3. Lingang Fu
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  4. Chunxiao Jiang
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  5. Ming Chen
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  6. Yong Ren
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Chunxiao Jiang.

Additional information

This work was partly supported by the Key Project of the Key R&D Program (Nos. 2018YFC1407200, 2017YFC1405200), Ministry of Science and Technology, China, and partly supported by the new strategic industries development projects of Shenzhen City (No. JCYJ20170816151922176). The associate editor coordinating the review of this paper and approving it for publication was L. Bai.

Chaoxing Yan received his Ph.D. degree in communication and information system from Beijing Institute of Technology, China, in 2012. Since March 2012, he has been with the Beijing Research Institute of Telemetry, where he is now a senior engineer. From July 2017 to December 2017, he was a visiting scholar in the Next-Generation Wireless Group chaired by Prof. Lajos Hanzo, School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, UK. He is the author of several scientific papers and 30 patents. He serves as the session chair of ICCC 2018. His primary research interests are UAV datalinks and satellite communication networking.

Jingjing Wang received his B.S. degree in electronic information engineering from Dalian University of Technology in 2014 with the highest honor. He is currently pursuing his Ph.D. degree in the Department of Electronic Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing. From 2017 to 2018, he has been a joint Ph.D. student in the Next-Generation Wireless Group chaired by Prof. Lajos Hanzo, University of Southampton, UK. His research interests include resource allocation and network association, learning-theory-aided modeling, analysis and signal processing, as well as information diffusion theory for mobile wireless networks. He received the Tsinghua GuangHua Scholarship Award in 2016 and Graduate China National Scholarship Award in 2017.

Lingang Fu received his M.S. degree in communication and information system in 2006 from Harbin Institute of Technology, China. He has been working at the Beijing Research Institute of Telemetry since 2006 as a senior engineer and project leader. His research interests include wireless communication techniques of UAVs and satellite communication systems.

Chunxiao Jiang [corresponding author] received his B.S. degree in information engineering from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (Beihang University) in 2008 and the Ph.D. degree from Tsinghua University, Beijing in 2013, both with the highest honors. In 2011–2012, he visited the Signals and Information Group at the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering of University of Maryland. In 2013–2016, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Electronic Engineering, Tsinghua University. Dr. Jiang is currently an assistant research fellow at the Tsinghua Space Center. His research interests include the applications of game theory and queuing theory in wireless communication and networking. Dr. Jiang received the Best Paper Award from IEEE GLOBECOM in 2013, Best Student Paper Award from IEEE GlobalSIP in 2015, Tsinghua Outstanding Postdoc Award in 2015, Beijing Distinguished Graduated Student Award, Chinese National Fellowship, and Tsinghua Outstanding Distinguished Doctoral Dissertation in 2013.

Ming Chen received his B.S. degree in electronics engineering in 2000 from University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, China. He is currently working at the Beijing Research Institute of Telemetry as a research fellow and a department leader. He has been involved in the telemetry, and track and command of several research projects: manned space flight, Chang’e lunar satellite, and Tiangong-1 space station. His research interests include telemetry, and track and command techniques of aeronautics and space systems.

Yong Ren received his B.S, M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electronic engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology, China, in 1984, 1987, and 1994, respectively. He worked as a post doctor at the Department of Electronics Engineering, Tsinghua University, China from 1995 to 1997. He is currently a professor of the Department of Electronics Engineering and the director of the Complexity Engineered Systems Laboratory in Tsinghua University. He holds 12 patents, and has authored or co-authored more than 100 technical papers related to the behaviors of computer network, P2P networks, and cognitive networks. He has served as a reviewer of the IEICE Transactions on Communications, Digital Signal Processing, Chinese Physics Letters, Chinese Journal of Electronics, Chinese Journal of Computer Science and Technology, Chinese Journal of Aeronautics, etc. His current research interests include complex systems theory and its applications to the optimization and information sharing of the Internet, Internet of Things, ubiquitous networks, cognitive networks, and cyber-physical systems.

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Yan, C., Wang, J., Fu, L. et al. Timing Synchronization and Ranging in Networked UAV-Aided OFDM Systems. J. Commun. Inf. Netw. 3, 45–54 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41650-018-0037-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41650-018-0037-y

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