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LTE Antenna for Tethered Drones

Sponsor:
AT&T
Industry Mentor:
Bob Matthews
Faculty Adviser:
Adam Bruckner

AT&T has an existing tethered drone solution with onboard LTE radios and antennas to provide temporary cellular coverage to first responders and to the public after a natural disaster or other network impacting event. The following video provides additional information on the existing AT&T solution. Payload weight and space are limited on drones, so AT&T would like to explore the potential of long wire (aka random wire) antennas integrated into the existing tether in place of traditional LTE antennas mounted on the drone. This capstone project would include research, development, test, and evaluation of a long wire antenna to provide public LTE transmit and receive services from a drone.