A regional emergency communication deployment method

Abstract

The present invention relates to a method for deploying regional emergency communications. This method adopts fixed-point deployment of aerial base stations and routing and switching communication equipment according to the distribution of communication terminals to form a regional self-organizing wireless MESH network and provide communication guarantee. Aerial base stations and tethered drones form a communication backbone node, and several backbone nodes form a MESH network. Each backbone node is composed of a drone platform, a backhaul system, and a ground system. This solution calculates the optimal deployment location by designing a clustering algorithm. Then, by real-time access to user data, iteratively updating the user location center and user allocation, the rapid deployment and efficient management of the drone emergency communication system can be achieved. It meets the emergency deployment and long-distance communication needs in the event of an emergency disaster.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The present invention relates to the field of emergency communication technology, and in particular to a regional emergency communication deployment method. Background Art

[0002] With the increasing frequency of natural disasters and emergencies, fast and effective emergency communication systems have become crucial tools for protecting people's lives and property and ensuring the normal operation of society. Traditional emergency communication systems rely on ground-based communication infrastructure, such as mobile base station vehicles or temporary communication towers. However, these systems often face challenges with infrastructure damage or inability to quickly reach disaster areas after a disaster, severely impacting the timeliness and effectiveness of emergency response.

[0003] As an affordable aerial platform, drones are widely used for disaster search and rescue, edge communications, and other temporary communication services due to their wide coverage and flexible configuration. The key to drone deployment lies in determining its specific location in three-dimensional space to achieve goals such as reducing communication costs and expanding coverage. However, current deployment methods cannot achieve the rapid deployment and efficient management of drone emergency communication systems, resulting in a failure to meet users' communication needs in emergency situations. Summary of the Invention

[0004] The purpose of the present invention is to provide a regional emergency communication deployment method to solve the problems encountered in the above background technology.

[0005] To achieve the above object, the technical solution of the present invention is as follows:

[0006] A method for deploying regional emergency communications is characterized in that: a tethered drone equipped with a base station and routing switching equipment serves as an aerial base station and aerial communication node of an emergency communications system, forming a self-organizing network in the air according to a mesh network topology. The method deploys the tethered drone emergency communications system location and matches it with ground users by designing a clustering algorithm, and is implemented by iteratively updating user location centers and user allocation. Specifically, the method follows the following steps:

[0007] S1, randomly select N user coordinate points as the initial UAV component clustering center points, and these N user coordinate nodes are backbone nodes;

[0008] S2. Enter a loop and sequentially calculate the distance from each user in the user coordinate data set to the cluster center points and the received signal strength; sequentially calculate the received signal strength and distance between N backbone nodes;

[0009] S3, assign users who meet the received signal strength requirements to the center point of the UAV component cluster with the smallest distance;

[0010] S4. Recalculate the mean of the horizontal and vertical coordinates of all users in each cluster as the new cluster center coordinates;

[0011] S5. If the coordinate distance between the new center point and the previous center point is less than the set threshold, the iteration process stops; if not, return to the loop and continue the iteration;

[0012] S6. Output the deployment coordinates of the drone group, i.e., the coordinates of the backbone nodes of the aerial network;

[0013] S7. For each of the N coordinate points, calculate the forwarding routing hop count between any two nodes. If the hop count is greater than 6, randomly select N+1 initial points and repeat S2 to S6 until the relay hop count between any two backbone nodes is less than 6.

[0014] S8. Output the number of deployed drones and their deployment coordinates.

[0015] In the above solution, the tethered drone emergency communication system includes a drone platform, a ground system, and a backhaul system. The drone platform is equipped with a communication base station, a wireless gateway, and ad hoc network communication equipment.

[0016] The ground system is a supporting emergency ground mooring platform including a power supply, and the ground system is installed with power supply equipment and a network switching unit.

[0017] Furthermore, the UAV platform is connected to the ground system via an optoelectronic composite tethering cable. The UAV platform and payload utilize the optoelectronic composite tethering cable to connect to a ground power source for continuous power supply. The optoelectronic composite tethering cable includes built-in optical fiber for internal data transmission within the communication equipment.

[0018] The backhaul system is the transmission link of the base station, which can adopt satellite relay, microwave relay, optical fiber direct connection and other backhaul methods to connect to the ground core network to achieve emergency support capabilities.

[0019] The tethered drone emergency communication system supports wireless dynamic networking and network logical grouping; supports point-to-point, point-to-many, and many-to-many communication modes; supports dynamic routing multi-hop relays; and supports star, linear, mesh, and hybrid dynamic network topologies.

[0020] In addition, the tethered drone emergency communication system supports image transmission and long-distance voice communication, dispatches drone communication command tasks, supports local and remote management, and is equipped with Web-based functional management components. It can set parameters such as operating frequency, channel bandwidth, network ID, and transmission power, and display and record parameters such as network topology and link quality in real time.

[0021] Compared with the existing technology, the beneficial effects of the present invention are: this scheme realizes the aerial self-organizing network and efficient management of the drone emergency communication system by designing a clustering algorithm, deploying the tethered drone emergency communication system location and matching it with ground users, and iteratively updating the user location center and user allocation. In the event of an emergency disaster, long-distance communication and emergency deployment can be achieved to meet the communication needs of users in emergency situations. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0022] The disclosure of the present invention is illustrated with reference to the accompanying drawings. It should be understood that the drawings are for illustrative purposes only and are not intended to limit the scope of protection of the present invention. In the accompanying drawings, the same reference numerals are used to refer to the same components. Among them:

[0023] Figure 1 Schematic diagram of the tethered drone emergency communication system of the present invention;

[0024] Figure 2 This is a schematic diagram of matching a tethered drone with a ground user in the present invention;

[0025] Figure 3 This is a flow chart of the method for deploying a tethered drone in the present invention. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0026] In order to make the technical means, creative features, objectives and effects of the present invention easier to understand, the present invention will now be further described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. These drawings are simplified schematic diagrams, which only illustrate the basic structure of the present invention in a schematic manner, and therefore only show the relevant components of the present invention.

[0027] According to the technical solution of the present invention, without changing the essential spirit of the present invention, a person skilled in the art may propose a variety of interchangeable structural modes and implementation modes. Therefore, the following specific embodiments and drawings are merely illustrative of the technical solution of the present invention and should not be regarded as the entire invention or as a limitation or restriction of the technical solution of the present invention.

[0028] The technical solution of the present invention is further described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings and embodiments.

[0029] Example 1, as Figure 1 and Figure 3 As shown, a regional emergency communication deployment method is described, in which a tethered drone equipped with a base station and routing switching equipment serves as an aerial base station and aerial communication node of the emergency communication system, forming a wireless MESH self-organizing communication network in the air according to the mesh network topology.

[0030] This method uses fixed-point deployment of aerial base stations and routing and switching communication equipment based on the distribution of communication terminals to form a regional self-organizing wireless mesh network to provide communication support. Aerial base stations, along with tethered drones, form the communication backbone nodes. Several backbone nodes form the mesh network, each consisting of a drone platform, a backhaul system, and a ground system.

[0031] The method deploys the location of the tethered UAV emergency communication system and matches it with ground users by designing a clustering algorithm, and is implemented by iteratively updating the user location center and user allocation, specifically according to the following steps:

[0032] S1, randomly select N user coordinate points as the initial UAV component clustering center points, and these N user coordinate nodes are backbone nodes;

[0033] S2. Enter a loop and sequentially calculate the distance from each user in the user coordinate data set to the cluster center points and the received signal strength; sequentially calculate the received signal strength and distance between N backbone nodes;

[0034] S3, assign users who meet the received signal strength requirements to the center point of the UAV component cluster with the smallest distance;

[0035] S4. Recalculate the mean of the horizontal and vertical coordinates of all users in each cluster as the new cluster center coordinates;

[0036] S5. If the coordinate distance between the new center point and the previous center point is less than the set threshold, the iteration process stops; if not, return to the loop and continue the iteration;

[0037] S6. Output the deployment coordinates of the drone group, i.e., the coordinates of the backbone nodes of the aerial network;

[0038] S7. For each of the N coordinate points, calculate the forwarding routing hop count between any two nodes. If the hop count is greater than 6, randomly select N+1 initial points and repeat S2 to S6 until the relay hop count between any two backbone nodes is less than 6.

[0039] S8. Output the number of deployed drones and their deployment coordinates.

[0040] Example 2, based on Example 1, please refer to Figure 1 and Figure 2 The tethered drone emergency communication system consists of a drone platform, a ground system, and a backhaul system. The drone platform carries a variety of mission payloads, including communication base station equipment and ad hoc network equipment, providing an airborne platform for the base station's long-term communication support capabilities. The drone platform is equipped with base stations and routing switching equipment.

[0041] The ground system is a supporting emergency ground mooring platform that includes a power supply. It provides 220V voltage for the ground power supply through a diesel generator or AC power supply. A cable retracting rack is installed on the ground mooring platform for cable retraction and deployment. The ground system is installed with network access equipment.

[0042] The UAV platform is connected to the ground system via an 80-100 meter optoelectronic composite tether cable. This cable can be retracted and deployed using a retractable rack installed in the ground system. The UAV platform and payload are connected to the ground power supply via the optoelectronic composite tether cable for continuous power supply. The optoelectronic composite tether cable has built-in optical fiber for internal data transmission within the communication equipment and connection to ground network access equipment.

[0043] The backhaul system is the transmission link of the base station. It can use satellite relay, microwave relay, direct fiber connection and other backhaul methods to connect to the ground core network to achieve emergency support capabilities. The integrated controller can communicate with the remote control, and then use the remote control to control the drone to achieve emergency communication. The drone can be a multi-rotor drone.

[0044] The tethered drone emergency communication system supports wireless dynamic networking, network logical grouping, dynamic routing multi-hop relay, and star, linear, mesh, and hybrid dynamic network topologies.

[0045] In addition, the tethered drone emergency communication system supports image transmission and long-distance voice communication, dispatches drone communication command tasks, supports automatic carrier tracking, supports local and remote management, and is equipped with a Web-based functional management component. It can set parameters such as operating frequency, channel bandwidth, network ID, and transmission power, and display and record parameters such as network topology and link quality in real time.

[0046] The tethered drone's communication system supports multiple communication methods, integrating communication and network switching modules. It connects multimodal terminal devices via a multimode communication gateway. Considering the power consumption and weight of each communication module, a centralized ground-based power supply is used to reduce the weight of the aerial payload and ensure the long-term reliable operation of the entire system.

[0047] Example 3, based on Example 1, a regional emergency communication deployment method, which uses a K-Means clustering algorithm to deploy the tethered drone emergency communication system location and match it with ground users, is achieved by iteratively updating the user location center and user allocation, specifically according to the following steps:

[0048] S1: Randomly select K user coordinate points as the initial drone group cluster center points:

[0049] S 1.1:The number of drones is K, the number of users is M, and the user coordinates are (X1, Y1), (X2, Y2)... (X m ,Y m );

[0050] Where K represents a preset positive integer, which represents the number of tethered drones to be deployed, that is, the number of clusters in the K-Means algorithm;

[0051] M represents a positive integer representing the total number of ground users requiring communication services within the emergency area;

[0052] m represents the user index, m∈{1,2,...,M};

[0053] (X m ,Y m ) represents the two-dimensional geographic coordinates of the mth user;

[0054] S 1.2 : Initialize the number of iterations i = 0;

[0055] S 1.3 : Randomly select K samples from the user coordinate data set as the initial cluster center of the drone group, whose coordinates are (X C1 ,Y C1 ),(X C2 ,Y C2 )...(X Ck ,Y Ck );

[0056] Among them, (X Ck ,Y Ck ) represents the coordinates of the kth cluster center at the beginning of a certain iteration, that is, the deployment position of the kth UAV;

[0057] S2: Loop the following steps:

[0058] S 2.1 : Set i = i + 1;

[0059] S 2.2 : Calculate the distance d from each user in the user coordinate dataset to these cluster center points in turn m,k =||(X m ,Y m )-(X Ck ,Y Ck )||2;

[0060] Where k represents the drone (cluster) index, k∈{1,2,...,K};

[0061] S 2.3 : Assign each user to the cluster center of the drone group with the smallest distance;

[0062] S 2.4 : Recalculate the mean of the horizontal and vertical coordinates of all users in each cluster as the new cluster center coordinates

[0063] S 2.5 :If the coordinate distance between the new center point and the previous center point is less than the set threshold, that is If not, the iteration process stops; if not, return to the loop and continue iterating;

[0064] Among them, (X Ck * ,Y Ck * ) represents the new k-th cluster center coordinates recalculated based on the mean of user coordinates within the cluster;

[0065] ε represents a preset very small positive number (e.g. 1e-4), which serves as the threshold for algorithm convergence. When the total offset between the new and old cluster centers is less than this value, the iteration stops.

[0066] S3: Output the final drone group deployment coordinates

[0067] The specific implementation methods described above further illustrate the objectives, technical solutions and beneficial effects of the present invention in detail. It should be understood that the above description is only a specific implementation method of the present invention and is not intended to limit the scope of protection of the present invention. Any modifications, equivalent substitutions, improvements, etc. made within the spirit and principles of the present invention should be included in the scope of protection of the present invention.

Claims

1. A regional emergency communication deployment method, characterized by: The method is to use a tethered drone equipped with a base station and routing switching equipment as an aerial base station and aerial communication node of the emergency communication system, and to form a wireless MESH self-organizing communication network in the air according to the mesh network topology. The method is implemented by designing a clustering algorithm to deploy the location of the tethered drone emergency communication system and match it with ground users, and by iteratively updating the user location center and user allocation. Specifically, the method is implemented in the following steps: S1, randomly select N user coordinate points as the initial UAV component clustering center points, and these N user coordinate nodes are backbone nodes; S2. Enter a loop and sequentially calculate the distance from each user in the user coordinate data set to the cluster center points and the received signal strength; sequentially calculate the received signal strength and distance between N backbone nodes; S3, assigning users who meet the received signal strength requirements to the center point of the UAV component cluster with the smallest distance; S4. Recalculate the mean of the horizontal and vertical coordinates of all users in each cluster as the new cluster center coordinates; S5. If the coordinate distance between the new center point and the previous center point is less than the set threshold, the iteration process stops; if not, return to the loop and continue the iteration; S6. Output the deployment coordinates of the drone group, i.e., the coordinates of the backbone nodes of the aerial network; S7. For each of the N coordinate points, calculate the forwarding routing hop count between any two nodes. If the hop count is greater than 6, randomly select N+1 initial points and repeat S2 to S6 until the relay hop count between any two backbone nodes is less than 6. S8. Output the number of deployed drones and their deployment coordinates.

2. A regional emergency communication deployment method according to claim 1, characterized in that: Each node of the tethered drone emergency communication system includes a drone platform, a base station and routing switching equipment, a backhaul system, a ground system and a power supply system. Several nodes form an aerial backbone network with a mesh network topology, and the nodes and access terminals form a star topology.

3. A regional emergency communication deployment method according to claim 2, characterized in that: The UAV platform is equipped with a variety of mission payloads, including communication base station equipment and ad hoc network equipment, providing an airborne platform for the base station's long-term communication guarantee capability.

4. A regional emergency communication deployment method according to claim 2, characterized in that: The ground system is a supporting emergency ground tethered platform including a power supply, and the ground system is installed with a power supply unit and an access gateway; the UAV platform is installed with a base station, self-organizing network equipment and routing switching equipment.

5. A regional emergency communication deployment method according to claim 4, characterized in that: The UAV platform is connected to the ground system via a photoelectric composite tethering cable, and the UAV platform and the payload are connected to a ground power supply via the photoelectric composite tethering cable to obtain a continuous power supply.

6. A regional emergency communication deployment method according to claim 5, characterized in that: The built-in optical fiber in the optoelectronic composite tethered cable provides data transmission within the communication equipment and connects the base station and routing switching equipment of the UAV platform.

7. A regional emergency communication deployment method according to claim 2, characterized in that: A wireless MESH network is formed between several aerial base stations. The backhaul system is the transmission link of the base station, which is connected to the ground core network through backhaul communication to achieve emergency support capabilities.

8. A regional emergency communication deployment method according to claim 1, characterized in that: The tethered drone emergency communication system supports wireless dynamic networking and network logical grouping; The tethered drone emergency communication system supports point-to-point, point-to-many, and many-to-many communication modes, supports dynamic routing multi-hop relay, and supports star, linear, mesh, and hybrid dynamic network topologies; The tethered drone emergency communication system supports image transmission and long-distance voice communication, and dispatches drone communication command tasks; The tethered drone emergency communication system supports local and remote management, is equipped with a Web-based functional management component for parameter setting, and performs real-time display and statistical recording of network topology and link quality parameters.

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