Cell Free Mobile Communication in UAV System as Mobile Infrastructure Solution for Smart System Platforms: A Survey

Smart systems platforms requires an adaptive telecommunications infrastructure to support the data transmission and exchange of information, especially for Smart Solutions with Mobility Models. Conventional Mobile Communication Systems are currently not flexible and adaptive enough because depend on terrestrial Base Stations (BS) which cover only some fixed areas. The usage of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) as BS is expected to solve the coverage problem in terrestrial BS, improve capacity, and provide flexible communication infrastructure. The limitations of the terrestrial system have become a potential for the development of cell-free based UAV communication systems. Channel characteristics and transmission schemes, overview of the optimization of cell-free UA V s are also presented in this paper. Comparison between cell-free UAV with other terrestrial systems is presented as a reference in seeing the existing potential. The results show that cell-free UAV has a very big opportunity to be developed because it has advantages in coverage area and communication system flexibility. Cell-free UAV systems able to apply for 5G and beyond communications system and can be used to build private network for dedicated smart system infrastructure.