Using a drone for optimum antenna placement

[ylrkdr]

I thought of this while laying in bed(isn't that when the best ideas happen? ), so if you you get a good chuckle out of this harebrained idea, then it's at least worth posting.

If you take a drone with a camera, tie a string or a 100ft. measuring tape to it, and take it up until you get LOS with a tower(if you can see it with the camera), and measure the distance of the string or the tape to get your needed tower height.

OR

Ziptie a mobile hotspot to the drone that has strength of signal info you can access via laptop or phone, attach the string or measuring tape, and once you get to maybe 40 ft., slowly rotate the drone until the signal maxes out. Repeat at different heights as the battery of the drone allows, until you get the best direction and height.

Sounds stupid?

[BrandonDillon]

I've pondered a similar concept. The way I've imaged it is outfitting a drone with an altimeter and flying it slowly around the parameter of the property with varying levels of elevation. Where I'm stuck is figuring out the most optimal way to log the data. The ideal goal would be that I can fly the drone and it log the signal data in a way that corresponds to location. The data management aspect of the project is what's kept me from starting the build.

Right now I have a customer that owns significant acreage that doesn't have a direct line of site to a tower because of hills. I'd love to know if simply having the hardware elevated ~30' on a mast would give the needed signal, but as it stands the only way I can know is to build it and put it up there.

Here's a quick and cheap way to get going: https://www.electronics-lab.com/project ... d-arduino/

[ylrkdr]

The drone I'm getting (Holy Stone HS720E) has altimeter readings on the controller display, so in my use case described above, I wouldn't need a tape measure. If I were to try to find an optimal spot over a large area such as yours, I'd get a bunch of marker flags, and number them 1 to whatever many flags you have (maybe 20?). Next, create a spreadsheet for each flag showing altitude, direction, signal strength, and cell band. Attach the hotspot to the drone, and test, notating the readings on the spreadsheets. If you could get the signal readings to load automatically on a spreadsheet in a pc program, that would save a lot of work!

You may not even need that many data points, unless the property is extremely hilly, and you get instances where the signal bounces off of a hill.