Long Range and Robust Drone Communication for Low-Altitude Networks

Speaker: Dr. Songfan LI
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Title: Long Range and Robust Drone Communication for Low-Altitude Networks

Date: Friday, 28 March 2025

Time: 11:00am - 11:30am

Join Zoom Meeting: https://hkust.zoom.us/j/93624265291?pwd=K21sNWNFenFYZjlTWDRPMTRwMTY5dz09
Meeting ID: 936 2426 5291
Passcode: 456088

Abstract:

The rapid expansion of the Low Altitude Economy (LAE) highlights the growing reliance on drones for surveillance, environmental monitoring, and emergency response. As drone operations expand into remote and challenging environments—such as those with significant signal blockage—the need for more efficient communication solutions has become more critical. In this talk, I'll discuss how Internet of Things (IoT) communication is unlocking new possibilities for drone communication. I will begin by presenting my previous research on IoT communication, where I leveraged low-power wireless techniques to reduce the energy consumption of IoT devices by relocating power-starving functions to their gateway. Next, I will discuss my research plan on low-altitude networks (LAE) as an extension of IoT. I will introduce a proposed long-range (LoRa) and robust drone communication method designed to support both command-and-control and video streaming links under challenging conditions. Additionally, I will present a preliminary study on LoRa-based drone state reporting that achieves a 6.5 km communication range under Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) conditions over hilly terrain.

Biography:

Songfan Li is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). He earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science and Technology from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC) in 2022. His research focuses on wireless communication for the Internet of Things (IoT) and mobile devices, and his work has been published in conferences including MobiCom, NSDI, SenSys, MobiSys, and ASPLOS. He recently received the Honored Doctoral Dissertation Award from ACM SigMobile China 2023, the Best Paper Award at SenSys 2024, and the Best Artifact Award at MobiSys 2024.