Characterization of the Link Quality of a Coordinated Wireless Environment.

The joint use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and wireless sensor networks (WSN) enables to monitor dangerous and inaccessible places. However, the success of this deployment depends on the quality of the wireless links connecting the sensor nodes on the ground with one another and with the UAVs. These links are affected by several factors including the physical environment, the ease with which the UAVs navigate or hover, the energy reserve, wind, and the MAC protocols arbitrating the wireless media between the UAVs and the WSN. In this paper we present experimental results pertaining to link quality fluctuations, packet delivery ratio, channel symmetry, and continuous packet transmission success and failure statistics. Furthermore, we propose a probabilistic model for estimating the time a UAV requires to successfully collect k number of packets from a ground gateway.