{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,12]],"date-time":"2025-10-12T01:58:08Z","timestamp":1760234288688,"version":"build-2065373602"},"reference-count":56,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"9","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,4,29]],"date-time":"2021-04-29T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1619654400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"H2020 Labyrinth","award":["861696"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["861696"]}]},{"name":"TRUE5G","award":["PID2019-108713RB679 C52\/AEI\/10.13039\/501100011033"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["PID2019-108713RB679 C52\/AEI\/10.13039\/501100011033"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>The Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) ecosystem is exponentially growing in both recreational and professional fields to provide novel services and applications to consumers from multiple engineering fields. However, this technology has only scraped the surface of its potential, especially in those cases that require fast reaction times. Accordingly, the UAS Traffic Management (UTM) project aims at efficiently managing the air traffic for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) operations, including those cases where UAVs might be remotely managed from a completely different geographical location. With these considerations in mind, this article presents a cellular-assisted UAVs testbed used to complete a mission managed beyond the radio line-of-sight (BRLoS), as well as introducing a virtualization platform for deploying services using containerization technology. In addition, the article conducts a communication performance evaluation in order to determine if the testbed equipment meets the requirements to carry out this BRLoS management. Finally, indoor flight operations are carried out to demonstrate the feasibility and proper operation of the testbed.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s21093093","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,4,29]],"date-time":"2021-04-29T04:30:11Z","timestamp":1619670611000},"page":"3093","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":11,"title":["Cellular and Virtualization Technologies for UAVs: An Experimental Perspective"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"21","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-3079-736X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Victor","family":"Sanchez-Aguero","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"IMDEA Networks Institute, Avda. del Mar Mediterr\u00e1neo, 22, 28918 Madrid, Spain"},{"name":"Department of Telematic Engineering, University Carlos III of Madrid, 28911 Leganes, Spain"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-0465-854X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Luis F.","family":"Gonzalez","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Telematic Engineering, University Carlos III of Madrid, 28911 Leganes, Spain"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-5056-0573","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Francisco","family":"Valera","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Telematic Engineering, University Carlos III of Madrid, 28911 Leganes, Spain"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7381-971X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Ivan","family":"Vidal","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Telematic Engineering, University Carlos III of Madrid, 28911 Leganes, Spain"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Rafael A.","family":"L\u00f3pez da Silva","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Telef\u00f3nica I+D, Distrito Telef\u00f3nica, Ronda de la Comunicaci\u00f3n s\/n, 28050 Madrid, Spain"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,4,29]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1567","DOI":"10.1109\/TMM.2019.2945167","article-title":"Sensor-Augmented Neural Adaptive Bitrate Video Streaming on UAVs","volume":"22","author":"Xiao","year":"2020","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Multimed."},{"key":"ref_2","unstructured":"(2021, April 27). Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management (UTM), Available online: https:\/\/www.faa.gov\/uas\/research_development\/traffic_management\/."},{"key":"ref_3","unstructured":"(2021, April 27). What Is Unmanned Aircraft Systems Traffic Management?, Available online: https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/ames\/utm."},{"key":"ref_4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"69","DOI":"10.54648\/AILA2019005","article-title":"The u-space concept","volume":"44","author":"Huttunen","year":"2019","journal-title":"Repr. Air Space Law"},{"key":"ref_5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Lappas, V., Zoumponos, G., Kostopoulos, V., Shin, H., Tsourdos, A., Tantarini, M., Shmoko, D., Munoz, J., Amoratis, N., and Maragkakis, A. (2020, January 1\u20134). EuroDRONE, A European UTM Testbed for U-Space. Proceedings of the 2020 International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (ICUAS), Athens, Greece.","DOI":"10.1109\/ICUAS48674.2020.9214020"},{"key":"ref_6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2334","DOI":"10.1109\/COMST.2019.2902862","article-title":"A tutorial on UAVs for wireless networks: Applications, challenges, and open problems","volume":"21","author":"Mozaffari","year":"2019","journal-title":"IEEE Commun. Surv. Tutor."},{"key":"ref_7","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"107451","DOI":"10.1016\/j.comnet.2020.107451","article-title":"A survey on cellular-connected UAVs: Design challenges, enabling 5G\/B5G innovations, and experimental advancements","volume":"182","author":"Mishra","year":"2020","journal-title":"Comput. Netw."},{"key":"ref_8","unstructured":"Fuller, D. (2016). AT&T Detail Network Testing Of Drones In Football Stadiums, Available online: https:\/\/www.androidheadlines.com\/2016\/09\/att-detail-network-testing-of-drones-in-football-stadiums.html."},{"key":"ref_9","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"48","DOI":"10.1109\/MCOM.2016.1600178CM","article-title":"The new frontier in RAN heterogeneity: Multi-tier drone-cells","volume":"54","author":"Yanikomeroglu","year":"2016","journal-title":"IEEE Commun. Mag."},{"key":"ref_10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Nogales, B., Silva, M., Vidal, I., Lu\u00eds, M., Valera, F., Sargento, S., and Azcorra, A. (2021). Using Aerial and Vehicular NFV Infrastructures to Agilely Create Vertical Services. Sensors, 21.","DOI":"10.3390\/s21041342"},{"key":"ref_11","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"3988","DOI":"10.1109\/TWC.2018.2818734","article-title":"UAV-aided offloading for cellular hotspot","volume":"17","author":"Lyu","year":"2018","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Wirel. Commun."},{"key":"ref_12","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"619","DOI":"10.1109\/SURV.2013.082713.00034","article-title":"Survey of wireless communication technologies for public safety","volume":"16","author":"Baldini","year":"2013","journal-title":"IEEE Commun. Surv. Tutor."},{"key":"ref_13","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Merwaday, A., and Guvenc, I. (2015, January 9\u201312). UAV assisted heterogeneous networks for public safety communications. Proceedings of the 2015 IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference Workshops (WCNCW), New Orleans, LA, USA.","DOI":"10.1109\/WCNCW.2015.7122576"},{"key":"ref_14","unstructured":"Albanese, A., Sciancalepore, V., and Costa-P\u00e9rez, X. (2020). SARDO: An automated search-and-rescue drone-based solution for victims localization. arXiv."},{"key":"ref_15","unstructured":"Muruganathan, S.D., Lin, X., Maattanen, H.L., Sedin, J., Zou, Z., Hapsari, W.A., and Yasukawa, S. (2018). An overview of 3GPP release-15 study on enhanced LTE support for connected drones. arXiv."},{"key":"ref_16","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"37251","DOI":"10.1109\/ACCESS.2019.2905347","article-title":"5G communication: An overview of vehicle-to-everything, drones, and healthcare use-cases","volume":"7","author":"Ullah","year":"2019","journal-title":"IEEE Access"},{"key":"ref_17","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"357","DOI":"10.1109\/TWC.2018.2879940","article-title":"Beyond 5G with UAVs: Foundations of a 3D wireless cellular network","volume":"18","author":"Mozaffari","year":"2018","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Wirel. Commun."},{"key":"ref_18","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Kovacs, I., Amorim, R., Nguyen, H.C., Wigard, J., and Mogensen, P. (2017, January 24\u201327). Interference analysis for UAV connectivity over LTE using aerial radio measurements. Proceedings of the 2017 IEEE 86th Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC-Fall), Toronto, ON, Canada.","DOI":"10.1109\/VTCFall.2017.8287891"},{"key":"ref_19","first-page":"569","article-title":"Flying ad hoc networks: A comprehensive survey","volume":"701","author":"Mukherjee","year":"2018","journal-title":"Inf. Decis. Sci."},{"key":"ref_20","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1123","DOI":"10.1109\/COMST.2015.2495297","article-title":"Survey of important issues in UAV communication networks","volume":"18","author":"Gupta","year":"2015","journal-title":"IEEE Commun. Surv. Tutor."},{"key":"ref_21","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"154659","DOI":"10.1109\/ACCESS.2019.2949119","article-title":"VENUE: Virtualized environment for multi-UAV network emulation","volume":"7","author":"Valera","year":"2019","journal-title":"IEEE Access"},{"key":"ref_22","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Leonov, A.V. (July, January 30). Application of bee colony algorithm for FANET routing. Proceedings of the 2016 17th International Conference of Young Specialists on Micro\/Nanotechnologies and Electron Devices (EDM), Erlagol, Russia.","DOI":"10.1109\/EDM.2016.7538709"},{"key":"ref_23","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2468","DOI":"10.1109\/TMC.2018.2811490","article-title":"A comparison of stateless position-based packet routing algorithms for FANETs","volume":"17","author":"Bujari","year":"2018","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Mob. Comput."},{"key":"ref_24","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Quaritsch, M., Stojanovski, E., Bettstetter, C., Friedrich, G., Hellwagner, H., Rinner, B., Hofbaur, M., and Shah, M. (2008, January 23\u201325). Collaborative microdrones: Applications and research challenges. Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Autonomic Computing and Communication Systems, Turin, Italy.","DOI":"10.4108\/ICST.AUTONOMICS2008.4642"},{"key":"ref_25","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Branco, K.R.L.J.C., Pelizzoni, J.M., Neris, L.O., Trindade, O., Os\u00f3rio, F.S., and Wolf, D.F. (2011, January 9\u201313). Tiriba\u2014A new approach of UAV based on model driven development and multiprocessors. Proceedings of the 2011 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Shanghai, China.","DOI":"10.1109\/ICRA.2011.5980581"},{"key":"ref_26","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Rametta, C., and Schembra, G. (2017). Designing a Softwarized Network Deployed on a Fleet of Drones for Rural Zone Monitoring. Future Internet, 9.","DOI":"10.3390\/fi9010008"},{"key":"ref_27","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Sara, M., Jawhar, I., and Nader, M. (2016, January 4\u20138). A Softwarization Architecture for UAVs and WSNs as Part of the Cloud Environment. Proceedings of the 2016 IEEE International Conference on Cloud Engineering Workshop (IC2EW), Berlin, Germany.","DOI":"10.1109\/IC2EW.2016.17"},{"key":"ref_28","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"172","DOI":"10.1109\/MWC.2019.1900025","article-title":"Toward UAV-Based Airborne Computing","volume":"26","author":"Lu","year":"2019","journal-title":"IEEE Wirel. Commun."},{"key":"ref_29","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Nogales, B., Vidal, I., Sanchez-Aguero, V., Valera, F., Gonzalez, L.F., and Azcorra, A. (2019). Automated deployment of an Internet protocol telephony service on unmanned aerial vehicles using network functions virtualization. JoVE, e60425.","DOI":"10.3791\/60425-v"},{"key":"ref_30","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Gonzalez, L.F., Vidal, I., Valera, F., Nogales, B., Sanchez-Aguero, V., and Lopez, D.R. (2019). Transport-Layer Limitations for NFV Orchestration in Resource-Constrained Aerial Networks. Sensors, 19.","DOI":"10.3390\/s19235220"},{"key":"ref_31","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"K\u00e4m\u00e4r\u00e4inen, T., Shan, Y., Siekkinen, M., and Yl\u00e4-J\u00e4\u00e4ski, A. (2015, January 3\u20134). Virtual machines vs. containers in cloud gaming systems. Proceedings of the 2015 International Workshop on Network and Systems Support for Games (NetGames), Zagreb, Croatia.","DOI":"10.1109\/NetGames.2015.7382987"},{"key":"ref_32","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Dua, R., Raja, A.R., and Kakadia, D. (2014, January 3\u20134). Virtualization vs. Containerization to Support PaaS. Proceedings of the 2014 IEEE International Conference on Cloud Engineering, Zagreb, Croatia.","DOI":"10.1109\/IC2E.2014.41"},{"key":"ref_33","unstructured":"Burns, B., Beda, J., and Hightower, K. (2018). Kubernetes, Dpunkt."},{"key":"ref_34","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Hong, C., and Shi, D. (2018, January 8\u201312). A Control System Architecture with Cloud Platform for Multi-UAV Surveillance. Proceedings of the 2018 IEEE SmartWorld, Ubiquitous Intelligence Computing, Advanced Trusted Computing, Scalable Computing Communications, Cloud Big Data Computing, Internet of People and Smart City Innovation (SmartWorld\/SCALCOM\/UIC\/ATC\/CBDCom\/IOP\/SCI), Guangzhou, China.","DOI":"10.1109\/SmartWorld.2018.00190"},{"key":"ref_35","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Behnke, D., M\u00fcller, M., B\u00f6k, P.B., Schneider, S., Peuster, M., Karl, H., Rocha, A., Mesquita, M., and Bonnet, J. (2019, January 12\u201314). NFV-driven intrusion detection for smart manufacturing. Proceedings of the 2019 IEEE Conference on Network Function Virtualization and Software Defined Networks (NFV-SDN), Dallas, TX, USA.","DOI":"10.1109\/NFV-SDN47374.2019.9039956"},{"key":"ref_36","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"216029","DOI":"10.1109\/ACCESS.2020.3041394","article-title":"Enhancing Rescue Operations With Virtualized Mobile Multimedia Services in Scarce Resource Devices","volume":"8","author":"Atutxa","year":"2020","journal-title":"IEEE Access"},{"key":"ref_37","first-page":"1","article-title":"A scalable cloud for Internet of Things in smart cities","volume":"26","author":"Hao","year":"2015","journal-title":"J. Comput."},{"key":"ref_38","unstructured":"Pardo-Castellote, G. (2003, January 19\u201322). Omg data-distribution service: Architectural overview. Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems Workshops, Providence, RI, USA."},{"key":"ref_39","unstructured":"Ribeiro, J.P., Fontes, H., Lopes, M., Silva, H., Campos, R., Almeida, J.M., and Silva, E. (2017, January 18\u201321). UAV cooperative perception based on DDS communications network. Proceedings of the OCEANS 2017-Anchorage, Anchorage, AK, USA."},{"key":"ref_40","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Park, H.S., Jang, J.H., Kim, J.D., Jung, H.I., and Lee, S.H. (2012, January 19\u201320). Bandwidth-aware DDS communication in WLAN. Proceedings of the 2012 International Conference on Systems and Informatics (ICSAI2012), Yantai, China.","DOI":"10.1109\/ICSAI.2012.6223332"},{"key":"ref_41","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Rigazzi, G., Kainulainen, J.P., Turyagyenda, C., Mourad, A., and Ahn, J. (2019, January 15\u201318). An edge and fog computing platform for effective deployment of 360 video applications. Proceedings of the 2019 IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference Workshop (WCNCW), Marrakech, Morocco.","DOI":"10.1109\/WCNCW.2019.8902860"},{"key":"ref_42","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Nogales, B., Sanchez-Aguero, V., Vidal, I., and Valera, F. (2018). Adaptable and Automated Small UAV Deployments via Virtualization. Sensors, 18.","DOI":"10.3390\/s18124116"},{"key":"ref_43","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Sanchez-Aguero, V., Vidal, I., Valera, F., Nogales, B., Mendes, L.L., Damascena Dias, W., and Carvalho Ferreira, A. (2021). Deploying an NFV-Based Experimentation Scenario for 5G Solutions in Underserved Areas. Sensors, 21.","DOI":"10.3390\/s21051897"},{"key":"ref_44","first-page":"1140713","article-title":"Detect and avoid function for UAVs: Presentation of an EO\/IR sensor solution","volume":"Volume 11407","author":"Maltese","year":"2020","journal-title":"Infrared Technology and Applications XLVI"},{"key":"ref_45","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"106168","DOI":"10.1016\/j.asoc.2020.106168","article-title":"Implementation of optimized dynamic trajectory modification algorithm to avoid obstacles for secure navigation of UAV","volume":"90","author":"Krishnan","year":"2020","journal-title":"Appl. Soft Comput."},{"key":"ref_46","unstructured":"Allignol, C., Barnier, N., Durand, N., and Blond, E. (2016, January 20\u201324). Detect & avoid, UAV integration in the lower airspace traffic. Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Research in Air Transportation (ICRAT), Philadelphia, PA, USA."},{"key":"ref_47","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Atoev, S., Kwon, K.R., Lee, S.H., and Moon, K.S. (2017, January 2\u20134). Data analysis of the MAVLink communication protocol. Proceedings of the 2017 International Conference on Information Science and Communications Technologies (ICISCT), Tashkent, Uzbekistan.","DOI":"10.1109\/ICISCT.2017.8188563"},{"key":"ref_48","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Koub\u00e2a, A. (2017). Robot Operating System (ROS), Springer.","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-319-54927-9"},{"key":"ref_49","first-page":"4734821","article-title":"An NFV-based energy scheduling algorithm for a 5G enabled fleet of programmable unmanned aerial vehicles","volume":"2019","author":"Hesselbach","year":"2019","journal-title":"Wirel. Commun. Mob. Comput."},{"key":"ref_50","unstructured":"(2021, April 27). V0.3.1, G.T. Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network: Study on Enhanced LTE Support for Aerial Vehicles (Release 15). Available online: https:\/\/portal.3gpp.org\/desktopmodules\/Specifications\/SpecificationDetails.aspx?specificationId=3231."},{"key":"ref_51","unstructured":"5TONIC (2021, April 27). The 5TONIC Laboratory. Available online: https:\/\/www.5tonic.org."},{"key":"ref_52","unstructured":"(2021, April 27). Ericsson 5G Radio Access. Available online: https:\/\/www.ericsson.com\/en\/ran."},{"key":"ref_53","unstructured":"(2021, April 27). Ericsson\u2019s Dual-Mode 5G Core. Available online: https:\/\/www.ericsson.com\/en\/core-network\/5g-core."},{"key":"ref_54","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"150162","DOI":"10.1109\/ACCESS.2020.3016118","article-title":"Risk Assessment Model for UAV Cost-Effective Path Planning in Urban Environments","volume":"8","author":"Hu","year":"2020","journal-title":"IEEE Access"},{"key":"ref_55","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Geramifard, A., Redding, J., Roy, N., and How, J.P. (July, January 29). UAV cooperative control with stochastic risk models. Proceedings of the 2011 American Control Conference, San Francisco, CA, USA.","DOI":"10.1109\/ACC.2011.5991309"},{"key":"ref_56","unstructured":"(2021, April 27). IBM: Internet Connection and Recommended Encoding Settings. Available online: https:\/\/support.video.ibm.com\/hc\/en-us\/articles\/207852117-Internet-connection-and-recommended-encoding-settings."}],"container-title":["Sensors"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/1424-8220\/21\/9\/3093\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,11]],"date-time":"2025-10-11T05:55:03Z","timestamp":1760162103000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/1424-8220\/21\/9\/3093"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2021,4,29]]},"references-count":56,"journal-issue":{"issue":"9","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,5]]}},"alternative-id":["s21093093"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/s21093093","relation":{},"ISSN":["1424-8220"],"issn-type":[{"type":"electronic","value":"1424-8220"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2021,4,29]]}}}