Link performance evaluation procedure for the introduction of unmanned air vehicles in civil airspace

Interest in Unmanned Aerial Systems (UASs) is growing worldwide and several efforts are underway to integrate UAS operations routinely and safely into civil airspace. Currently, UAS operations are confined to special-use airspace or are constrained, for safety reasons, by a restrictive authorization process. This paper takes into account the main issues to introduce the UAS in civil airspace, with particular attention to the problems connected with the communication links and provides some strategies to guarantee link performances in real time.