Abstract

For a mission to be successful, a long-range communication Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and Ground Control Stations (GCS) should be reliable. It is essential to ensure the success since it is necessary to obtain HD videos, high-bandwidth data. Therefore, developing an automated antenna tracking system is the aim of this study. The system utilizes a 5.8 GHz directional antenna, aiming to prevent the significant path loss associated with high-frequency bands. Proportional–Integral–Derivative (PID) controller becomes the basis of the system, generally optimized using Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) with the Integral of Time weighted Squared Error (ITSE) as the objective function. Stationary step-response tests and autonomous flight missions were employed as experimental testing methods. The findings show that PSO optimized controller achieves superior stability with near-negligible overshoot and high pointing accuracy. Moreover, a tracking error below 0.5° across various UAV speeds is well maintained. Dealing with comparative field tests, the data suggest that the 5.8 GHz directional system keeps a robust data link up to 1 km. Thus, its performance is remarkably better than conventional 433 MHz omnidirectional setups which failed beyond 200 meters. Not only a practical, but also a feasible solution beneficial to boost telemetry range and stability in high-definition UAV monitoring applications.

Key words: Antenna tracker; UAV; GCS; PSO; telemetry system