Map Reconstruction in UAV Networks via Fusion of Radio and Depth Measurements

In this work, we develop an algorithm to construct radio maps that can predict the received signal strength between a UAV-mounted base station and arbitrary ground users. The novelty of the work lies in the fact that these maps are constructed by fusing UAV-user radio signal strength measurements, and depth information of the surrounding environment which is obtained by an on-board laser range finder sensor. The proposed approach exploits both line-of-sight (LoS) and non-line-of-sight (NLoS) nature of UAV-user channels and depth information to first obtain the 3D map of the city and then later use it to estimate the radio map. Numerical results demonstrate the significant gain brought by the fusion of radio and depth measurements as opposed to a system which only relies on radio measurements.