Creation of a 3D web-based tool for cellular mobile network drone coverage analysis

Abstract

This project wants to create a useful tool to analyse the behaviour of the mobile network by not only focusing on the traditional bidimensional plane but also with height, on a 3D globe environment. This tool is motivated by the increasing usage of drones in a day-to-day basis and the need of them to increase the coverage Beyond Visual Line-Of-Sight (BVLOS). Additionally, mobile networks can provide more features to the drone industry, to name a few: identification via unique IMEI number or definition of restricted NO-FLY Zones based on cell towers, etc. Because mobile network technology standards where not initially designed to cover above human heights there is a very big interest into analysing how, empirically, the coverage is with the height factor of the drones in mind. This project has successfully developed a web tool that can analyse and visualizes the coverages and parameters of different readings of drone data. The obtention of the raw mobile data have been possible using off the shelf DJI frame drones with custom made hardware and software solutions develop at MOCCA. The webpage has been developed, following the existing styles and rules at MOCCA, using the Ionic framework on top of the Angular and is based on the CesiumJS JavaScript library. MOCCA Mobile Network Analysis (http://mna-site.mocca-technologies.com/) is thought to be a user-based web application, where any user of MOCCA can log in and create, delete or request any analysis. These, can have a set of fully customizable parameters at the time of generation and can also be downloaded in a raw CSV format to be later analysed. It features some basic height and RAT filtering to increase the viewing angles on complex volumes and a great amount of colour palettes for increased visibility in any point on the earth globe. This options on top of the ones that MOCCA already has implemented gives the user a lot of flexibility with the analysis. Assisted by some external REST API -and after some extensive comparisons- it has been implemented the possibility to draw a custom made cell antenna tower (coloured differently based on the technology used) in order to ease the user on locating the position of the antennas to which the drone has been connected in. The website has proven usable and able to do all for what was intended to do, while creating an interesting and user-friendly User Interface (UI) to keep the analyser focused on what is looking.